Ocean State Libraries

Nineteenth-century scientist David Starr Jordan built one of the most important fish specimen collections ever seen, until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake shattered his life's work.

"A Pulitzer Prize-winning author presents this fully authorized--and timely-biography of the Harvard biologist and naturalist who has become a leading voice on the crucial importance to all life of biodiversity and has worked tirelessly to synthesize the fields of science and the humanities in a fruitful way."--

This is the story of John Muir's adventurous lie, from his wild and playful boyhood in Scotland to his legendary exploits in America, where he became an inventor, a global explorer, and the first modern environmentalist--and even made friends with a president! His heart was always in the outdoors and he aimed to experience all he could. He swung through a windstorm at the top of a tall tree, clilmbed too many mountains to count, and rode an avalanche...

"A picture book biography about naturalist and artist Anna Comstock (1854-1930), who defied social conventions and pursued the study of science. She pioneered a movement to encourage schools to conduct science and nature classes for children outdoors, thereby increasing students' interest in nature" --

A biography of John Muir, naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club, whose travels, speeches and writings led directly to the creation of the Yosemite National Park in 1890 and other national parks that followed.

In fifty-four chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams (beloved author of "Refuge") creates a lyrical and caring meditation of the mystery of her mother's journals .. and what it means to have a voice beyond a selfless existence informed by children and a husband.

"To coincide with the bicentennial of Thoreau's birth in 2017, this...biography by naturalist and historian Kevin Dann fills a gap in our understanding of one modern history's most important spiritual visionaries by capturing the full arc of Thoreau's life as a mystic, spiritual seeker, and explorer in transcendental realms."--

In 1849, 11-year-old John Muir immigrated from Scotland to America. Here, he rose from farmer and sawmill worker to become a noted authority on the botany, glaciers, and forestry of the nation's wilderness. Best known for his long association with the Yosemite Valley and Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, Muir also explored, mostly afoot, the southern States, Alaska, the Great Basin, and the Mojave Desert. His studies of nature took him around...

Birds were "the objects of my greatest delight," wrote John James Audubon (1785–1851), founder of modern ornithology and one of the world's greatest bird painters. His masterpiece, The Birds of America depicts almost five hundred North American bird species, each image—lifelike and life size—rendered in vibrant color. Audubon was also an explorer, a woodsman, a hunter, an entertaining and prolific writer, and an energetic self-promoter.

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