CASABIANCA 



1212 



CASCARA 



century. It was introduced from Cassaba, near 

 Smyrna in Asia Minor, and is sometimes known 

 as the Persian melon. Its color both inside 

 and out is yellow. The flesh is of excellent 

 quality. The outside is divided like other 

 melons by longitudinal channels, but is smooth, 

 lacking the network characteristic of American 

 muskmelons. See color plate, with article 

 FRUITS. 



CASABIANCA, kah zah byahng'ka, the boy 

 who "stood on the burning deck, whence all 

 but him had fled." Mrs. Hemans' famous 

 poem, which begins with the lines quoted, tells 

 how he remained steadfast until the vessel 

 was destroyed by an explosion, rather than 

 leave without his father's express command. 

 And the father, meanwhile, lay too deeply 

 wounded to hear his son's cry. 



Casabianca was a real boy, only ten years 

 old at the time he met his death.- The father 

 was captain of the Orient, the flagship of Na- 

 poleon's fleet, and during the Battle of Abukir 

 Bay in 1798 was compelled to assume command 

 of the whole fleet because the admiral had been 

 killed. The death of the brave boy roused 

 much sympathy and admiration, and Mrs. He- 

 mans expressed the general feeling in the clos- 

 ing words of her poem: 



But the noblest thing that perished there 

 Was that young faithful heart. 



The poem has often been parodied and thus 

 has been deprived of some of its appeal, but 

 the boy's deed itself has never lost its power 

 to thrill. 



CASCADE, kasskayd', RANGE, a mountain 

 chain in the western part of North America, 

 extending from Northern California through 

 Oregon and Washington to British Columbia 

 and Alaska. It is usually called a northward 

 continuation of the Sierra Nevada, from which 

 it is separated by a series of deep valleys near 

 Mount Shasta. This peak, rising 14,380 feet 

 above the sea, is the loftiest in the range and 

 is one of the most magnificent mountains in 

 North America. Mount Rainier, or Tacoma, 

 whose summit is 14,408 feet above the sea, 

 Mount Adams, 12,470 feet, and Mount Hood, 

 11,225 feet, are other beautiful peaks. Many 

 of the peaks of the range are extinct volcanoes. 



As a mass the Cascade Range is compara- 

 tively low and broad, though rugged in out- 

 line and topped by snow-clad peaks. Par- 

 ticularly in Oregon and Washington, where the 

 Columbia and the Klamath rivers have cut 

 deep canyons through the mountains, the 

 scenery is magnificent. The slopes, particularly 



on the west, are heavily wooded and seem to 

 form a great dark cloak for bright green pas- 

 tures, shimmering blue lakes and glistening 

 white peaks. The Cascade Range is the home 

 of the Douglas fir, a tree which often reaches a 

 height of 200 feet or more and is justly con- 

 sidered one of the most beautiful trees in the 

 world. Practically the whole of the mountain 

 forest area in Oregon and Washington is now 

 included in national forest reserves. 



The Cascade Range is generally considered 

 to end at the International Boundary. Its 

 natural continuation in British Columbia would 

 be the nearest mountains to the Pacific, which 

 are called the Coast Range. This is compara- 

 tively low, seldom reaching above 8,000 feet, 

 but is snowy and contains numerous glaciers. 

 It is cut into deeply by splendid fiords, and 

 the larger rivers, such as the Fraser, the Skeena 

 and the Stikine, have cut profound and pic- 

 turesque canyons and valleys through the 

 range. The Canadian Pacific Railway follows 

 the Fraser canyon to the sea, while the Grand 

 Trunk Pacific uses the Skeena valley 500 miles 

 to the northwest. 



Cascade Tunnel. The Great Northern Rail- 

 way has cut a tunnel under the crest of this 

 range at a point about fifty miles southeast 

 of Everett and fifty-five miles east of Seattle. 

 The tunnel is sixteen feet wide, twenty-one and 

 a half feet high and 13,416 feet, or 2.6 miles, 

 long. This is one of the most noted engineer- 

 ing works of its kind on the North American 

 continent. 

 A similar tunnel 

 on the Northern 

 Pacific Railway, 

 about fifty miles 

 directly southeast 

 of Seattle, is 9,850 

 feet long. See 

 map, NORTH 

 AMERICA. A.P.C. 



CAS'CARA, a 

 laxative drug 

 from the bark of 

 the cascara sa- 

 grada, known as 

 chittim - wood 

 bark, or sacred 

 bark. The plant 

 grows as a large 

 shrub or a small 

 tree in the Northern United States and South- 

 ern Canada and south as far as Northern Cali- 

 fornia. The dried pieces of bark are broken 



CASCARA 



(a) Male flower 

 (ft) Female flower 

 (c) Fruit 



