298 The Canadian Horticulturist 



MOUNT TACOMA. 



^1 ROBABLY the most magnificent scenery in the world is afforded in 

 the region of the Rocky Mountains, near the Western Coast of our 

 Continent. What grander view could there be than the one shown 

 in our engraving of Mount Tacoma, one of the highest mountains 

 of the cascade raoge of the Sierra Nevadas ? Not far from it the 

 Northern Pacific R. R. crosses the Stampede Pass, at an elevation of 

 3,600 feet, and winds down toward Puget Sound, which is considered 

 the most beautiful sheet of salt water in the world. It is along this line that 

 this view was taken, and the only one of many that might be models for the 

 most expert artists in the world. 



We quote a paragraph from a contemporary concerning the lofty mountain 

 above mentioned : — 



" Mount Tacoma, prince of that royal family, the Cascades, highest of 

 them all, clad in his robes of perpetual white, is seen from Tacoma and Olympia 

 as from no other points. Towering above the clouds, to-day seeming but 

 twenty or thirty miles distant-, to morrow seeming an hundred ; a pure white in 

 the noon-day light, turning to a beautiful pink with purple foot-hills in the light 

 of the setting sun, and then fading to a silver gray, unsympathetic but regal in 

 grandeur, this fine mountain is in itself the building of a great empire, whose 

 private and public life cannot but take color and character from its sturdy and 

 stately presence." 



Regarding the name of this mountain, Meehans' Monthly says : — 

 " Residents of the North-West Coast are exercised about the name of the 

 great mountain known in geography as Mount Ranier, but which they insist 

 shall be called Tacoma. Vancouver was the first geographer who saw it, 

 and under geographical rules had the right to give it a name. He named 

 it after a friend in the Old World named Ranier. The Indians had long 

 ago known it as Tacoma, and the effort is to set aside the geographical name 

 in favor of its ancient Indian one." 



Mount Tacoma is possibly one of the most remarkable of mountains. 

 The glaciers which fiow from it are among the most wonderful in the world. 

 It furnishes the water for a large number of western rivers. 



Those who are well versed in Indian history conclude that the Indian in- 

 habitants of this part of America came from Alaska, and that from this point 

 the immigration was southwardly until they eventually settled ancient Mexico 

 and Peru. That the Indians of Alaska came from Asia is pretty clearly settled 

 now. The line of their journeyings seems to have been all along the Pacific 

 coast. Tradition among the Alaska Indians, describing the country from which 

 their forefathers came, seems to fit Kamatschatka so clearly that there is little 

 room now for doubt of the Asiatic origin of the Indian race. 



