GLACIERS OF MOUNT RAINIER 



obtained by more or less approximate methods. In 

 1913 the United States Geological Survey, in con- 

 nection with its topographic surveys of the Mount 

 Rainier National Park, was able to make a new series 

 of measurements by triangulation methods at close 

 range. These give the peak an elevation of 14,408 

 feet, thus placing it near the top of the list of high 

 summits of the United States. This last figure, it 

 should be added, is not likely to be in error by more 

 than a foot or two and may with some confidence be 

 regarded as final. Greater exactness of determination 

 is scarcely practicable in the case of Mount Rainier, 

 as its highest summit consists actually of a mound of 

 snow the height of which naturally varies somewhat 

 with the seasons and from year to year. 



This crowning snow mound, which was once sup- 

 posed to be the highest point in the United States, still 

 bears the proud name of Columbia Crest. It is es- 

 sentially a huge snowdrift or snow dune, heaped up 

 by the westerly winds. Driving furiously up through 

 the great breach in the west flank of the mountain, 

 between Peak Success and Liberty Cap, they eddy 

 lightly as they shoot over the summit and there deposit 

 their load of snow. 



The drift is situated at the point where the rims of 

 the two summit craters touch, and represents the only 

 permanent snow mass on these rims, for some of the 

 internal heat of the volcano still remains and suffices 

 to keep these rock-crowned curving ridges bare of snow 

 the better part of the year. It is intense enough, even, 

 to produce numerous steam jets along the inner face 

 of the rim of the east crater, which appears to be the 

 most recently formed of the two. The center of this 

 depression, however, is filled with snow, so that it has 

 the appearance of a shallow, white-floored bowl some 

 1,200 feet in diameter. Great caverns are melted out 

 by the steam jets under the edges of the snow mass, 

 and these caverns afford shelters which, though unin- 



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