这些论文汇集在这个数量已在一般的方式，在时间顺序排列。他们跨度在有限的和当地大部分出版物流通的2009年的缪尔的生活，在他们看来包括信件和物品，年期。犹他州和内华达州的速写，圣盖博和两个文件，分别作出了贡献，在信件的形式向旧金山晚报对上世纪70年代末。在外地写的，它们保存了这些地区的提交人的第一印象的新鲜程度。在关于芒特沙斯塔章节的大部分材料在1874年首次参加类似的形状。后来它被重写，更便于在风景如画的加州列入扩大，落基山脉，其中缪尔在1888年开始编辑区西。在同一工作出现了华盛顿州和俄勒冈州的描述。迷人的小论文“野生毛”写的陆路月刊于1875年。 “地质学家的冬季走”是从一个字母提取到一个朋友，谁，欣赏文学品质优良，采取了陆路月刊未经作者的知识，把它发送到责任。有关“科罗拉多大峡谷的最后一章”是在世纪出版杂志在1902年，缪尔和描述展品的权力在他们的成熟。
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    The papers brought together in this volume have, in a general way, been arranged in chronological sequence. They span a period of twenty-nine years of Muir's life, during which they appeared as letters and articles, for the most part in publications of limited and local circulation. The Utah and Nevada sketches, and the two San Gabriel papers, were contributed, in the form of letters, to the San Francisco Evening Bulletin toward the end of the seventies. Written in the field, they preserve the freshness of the author's first impressions of those regions. Much of the material in the chapters on Mount Shasta first took similar shape in 1874. Subsequently it was rewritten and much expanded for inclusion in Picturesque California, and the Region West of the Rocky Mountains, which Muir began to edit in 1888. In the same work appeared the description of Washington and Oregon. The charming little essay "Wild Wool" was written for the Overland Monthly in 1875. "A Geologist's Winter Walk" is an extract from a letter to a friend, who, appreciating its fine literary quality, took the responsibility of sending it to the Overland Monthly without the author's knowledge. The concluding chapter on "The Grand Canyon of the Colorado" was published in the Century Magazine in 1902, and exhibits Muir's powers of description at their maturity.