William H. H. Murray wrote his celebrated book in the spring of 1869 to introduce city-dwellers to the rewards of camping in the wilderness. Thousands of tourists streamed to the Adirondacks that summer in what was known as "Murray's Rush." Unfortunately, most had not read the book carefully, and that summer was unusually wet and cold. The result was an enormous outcry against Murray and his "lies," to which he responded with vigor in an article published in the
New-York Daily Tribune, October 23, 1869, and included here.