MOUNT RAINIER 



of making its complete survey, both geological and 

 topographical, as far as the lateness of the season and 

 the means at our disposal would permit. As the topo- 

 graphical work has not yet been plotted, the figures 

 given in my notes are merely estimates, and liable to 

 subsequent correction. I herewith transmit an ab- 

 stract from my notes upon the glaciers, embracing 

 those of rather more than half the slopes of the moun- 

 tain, those on the eastern side, from the extreme 

 southern to the extreme northern point. 



The summit of Tachoma is formed by three peaks, 

 a southern, an eastern, and a northwestern : of these 

 the eastern is the highest ; those on the south and 

 northwest, being apparently a few hundred feet lower, 

 are distant about a mile and a half to two miles from 

 this, and separated by deep valleys. The eastern 

 peak, which would seem to have formed originally the 

 middle of the mountain mass, is a crater about a quar- 

 ter of a mile in diameter of very perfect circular form. 

 Its sides are bare for about 60 feet from the rim, be- 

 low which they are covered by a neve having a slope of 

 from 28 to 31. This neve extending from the shoul- 

 ders of the southwestern peak to those of the northern, 

 a width of several miles, descends to a vertical distance 

 of about 2000 feet below the crater rim, an immense 

 sheet of white granular ice, having the general form of 

 the mountain surface, and broken only by long trans- 

 verse crevasses, one of those observed being from one 

 to two miles in length : it is then divided up by the 

 several jutting rock-masses or shoulder of the mountain 

 into the Nisqually, Cowlitz and White River glaciers, 

 falling in distinct ice cascades for about 3000 feet at 

 very steep angles, which sometimes approach the per- 

 pendicular. From the foot of these cascades flow the 

 glaciers proper, at a more gentle angle, growing nar- 

 rower and sinking deeper into the mountain as they 

 descend. From the intervening spurs, which slope 

 even more gradually, they receive many tributary 



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