MOUNT RAINIER 



microflora thriving on the snow, the other species re- 

 maining invisible for lack of a conspicuous color. 



To return to the frigid upper neves, it is not to be 

 supposed that they suffer no loss whatever by melt- 

 ing. The heat radiated directly to them by the sun 

 is alone capable of doing considerable damage, even 

 while the air remains below the freezing point. At 

 these high altitudes the sun heat is astonishingly in- 

 tense, as more than one uninitiated mountain climber 

 has learned to his sorrow by neglecting to take the 

 customary precaution of blacking his face before making 

 the ascent. In a few hours the skin is literally scorched 

 and begins to blister painfully. 



At the foot of the mountain the sun heat is relatively 

 feeble, for much of it is absorbed by the dust and 

 vapor in the lower layers of the atmosphere, but on 

 the summit, which projects 2 miles higher, the air is 

 thin and pure, and lets the rays pass through but little 

 diminished in strength. 



The manner in which the sun affects the snow is 

 peculiar and distinctive. Instead of reducing the 

 surface evenly, it melts out many close-set cups and 

 hollows, a foot or more in diameter and separated by 

 sharp spires and crests. No water is visible any- 

 where, either in rills or in pools, evaporation keeping 

 pace with the reduction. If the sun's action is per- 

 mitted to continue uninterrupted for many days, as 

 may happen in a hot, dry summer, these snow cups 

 deepen by degrees, until at length they assume the 

 aspect of gigantic bee cells, several feet in depth. Snow 

 fields thus honeycombed may be met with on the slopes 

 above Gibraltar Rock. They are wearisome to tra- 

 verse, for the ridges and spines are fairly resistant, so 

 that one must laboriously clamber over them. Most 

 exasperating, however, is the going after a snowstorm 

 has filled the honeycombs. Then the traveler, waist 

 deep in mealy snow, is left to flounder haphazard 

 through a hidden labyrinth. 



214 



