Ah, I'm a total sucker for McPhee. Another all-around winner.

I didn't have the patience for the longest one in the book at first (about gravel), but it turned out to be one of the most fascinating, in the end. I want to be a forensic geologist now.... ( )

"Work you never considered people might do" might be the theme of this essay collection. Or you might say the stories are unrelated. Interesting, but in the long run nothing life changing for me. McPhee manages to find people who are passionate about different things, & condenses his conversations into 7 essays. Sometimes, I think, these conversations intersect his own passion & he does some separate research that ties in eons and history--most notably in the geology of rocks mentioned in both the essay on forensic geology and the one on repairing Plymouth Rock. The wide-range of his interests shows in his ability to tie Sherlock Holmes to forensic geology and make interesting the story of how unique rocks can be.
The essay which intersected my own personal interest was on managing a piece of forest in NJ which has been uncut since (at least) the Dutch settled in 1701. I had read about the Hutcheson Forest in my studies. The second sentence is a wonderfully descriptive image of what "virgin forest" is. Being of German heritage myself, and also remembering old paintings of the American wilderness which only depicted nicely spaced large trunks, I appreciated the observation of how surprised German researchers were by the messiness of the virgin forest. And even tho I've studied forests for years, I learned new things about natural interrelationships. That "Spicebush and dogwood fruits are very high in lipids...[important for] birds getting ready for long migratory flights" (p.74) which tied in nicely with knowing that some of the more invasive bushes, like honeysuckle and buckthorn, have little food value & the seeds are spread as the food is basically undigested. Or that "Wild grapes are incapable of climbing the trunks of large trees. They are lifted by trees as the trees grow, and their bunches hang from the top of the canopy" (p.71). And I picked up a theory, which I will keep in mind as i observe the woods I hike through, that maybe plants make splotches of early color as a signal to birds that their bird-disseminated fruit is ready to be eaten (p.74). ( )

Al Lehman In a land where a common saying is that no one eats his own beef, the Nevada brand inspector becomes crucial to civilization. Without one, There'd be a lot of dead bodies." Rustling in the 1990's is still an occupational hazard where ranches are measured in tens of thousands of acres. John McPhee, a favorite writer of mine, has recently published a new collection of essays entitled, Irons in the Fire. The title essay is his investigation of brands and their history. The brand inspector's job is to keep everyone honest and the ranchers accept this and approve. The inspector also has to be part cop, part private investigator, part, Indian tracker, and have a whole lot of knowledge and instinct for the people and the country in order to recognize hundreds of brands and how they might be changed.

In another essay, McPhee writes about the virgin forest, particularly a spot near Brunswick New Jersey where the suburbs grow so fast that animals are often trapped between motels. The land had originally belonged to the Van Liew family who had acquired it in 1701 and farmed all but sixty-five acres they set aside. In the 1950s they consulted a sawyer and discovered that the value of some of the white oaks that dated to the 17th century was "expressible in ducats." Making their desire to sell public, all sorts of organizations came out of the woodwork :-)) to prevent the felling of these trees. Not enough money was raised until the Carpenters' Union bought the land and gave it to Rutgers University in 1955. The restriction on Rutgers were that only a small path could be maintained along one edge. They could not enter or change anything else on the sixty-five acres – just study it from a distance. There are only a few other areas of virgin forest left in the United States – one in Illinois along the Wabash. The Hutcheson Memorial Forest owned by Rutgers is perhaps the most famous. It has supported the research for hundreds of advanced degrees including thirty-six Ph.D.s. "So many articles, papers, theses, and other research publications have come out of Hutcheson Forest that – as the old saw goes – countless trees have been cleared elsewhere just in order to print them." ( )

The story about cattle rustling is best. Also the kidnapping one. Tepidly recommended, except for my dad, who might really like it. ( )

cattle rustlers to blind writer to tree collection in california to plate tectonics--typical McPhee