This area was pristine and untouched, filled with "beauty beyond thought everywhere,"" (Muir 19), having been with Delaney's sheep for long enough to realize that they indeed are the voracious "hoofed locusts,"" (Muir 57) as he so aptly describes them. Whose harm he declared "goes to the heart"" (Muir 57). Knowing that where men and his ambitions go bring only destruction in his wake. John wanted to preserve the area and many like it, Nature, as the Creator intended, untouched and free of human interference, especially industry, offered something that you just couldn't find in the city, that is true spiritual healing in the midst of such Divine beauty. .
Mr. Muir grew up in a time where Manifest Destiny governed the actions of American expansion and set the tone for how Americans would expand, regardless, of what or who was in the way. Americans were consumed with the quick profits and acquisition of wealth, having heard all the stories of how the West could make them wealthy. So spurred the migration westerly by many Americans, in the spirit of making big money, people with this mentality were by no means concerned with the cost of how they were going to acquire wealth, especially if the cost was one that destroyed the divine scenery of nature, for which Mr.Muir often speaks, and is the general theme of the journal. John Muir argues against the latter, his reoccurring argument he offers to protect such places, is the fact that such places are without a doubt, good for the soul. Places like Yosemite valley offer a man a way to escape the corruption of city living and connect you to the uncorrupted Nature, in order to, purify ones soul with what is sometimes indescribable divine beauty. "Everything is perfectly clean and pure and full of divine lessons, the hand of God becomes visible in nature"" (Muir 157).
By the end of the book one realizes that he calls upon all Americans to find there salvation in the same place he found his: in the wilderness.
