Of the politicians and engineers who had planned to construct a vast reservoir in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, Muir wrote: "These temple destroyers, devotees of a ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar. Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man." Although all but one of Muir's books were published in the twentieth century, by the end of the nineteenth century his periodical articles--beginning with "Yosemite Valley in Flood," which appeared in April 1872 in the
Overland Monthly--had established his literary voice as one of the most remarkable in the American West.
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