CREATION OF MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK 



the characteristic features of those in the Alps, and 

 though less extensive than the ice streams of the Mount 

 Blanc or Monta Rosa groups are in their crevasses and 

 seracs equally striking and equally worthy of close 

 study. We have seen nothing more beautiful in 

 Switzerland or Tyrol, in Norway or in the Pyrenees, 

 than the Carbon River glaciers and the great Puyallup 

 glaciers ; indeed, the ice in the latter is unusually pure, 

 and the crevasses unusually fine. The combination of 

 ice scenery with woodland scenery of the grandest 

 type is to be found nowhere in the Old World, unless it 

 be in the Himalayas, and, so far as we know, nowhere 

 else on the American Continent/' 



These eminent and experienced observers further 

 say: 



"We may perhaps be permitted to express a hope 

 that the suggestion will at no distant date be made to 

 Congress that Mount Rainier should, like the Yosemite 

 Valley and the geyser region of the Upper Yellowstone, 

 be reserved by the Federal Government and treated 

 as a national park/' 



But Mount Tacoma is single not merely because it is 

 superbly majestic ; it is an arctic island in a temperate 

 zone. In a bygone age an arctic climate prevailed over 

 the Northwest, and glaciers covered the Cascade Range. 

 Arctic animals and arctic plants then lived throughout 

 the region. As the climate became milder and glaciers 

 melted, the creatures of the cold climate were limited 

 in their geographic range to the districts of the shrink- 

 ing glaciers. On the great peak the glaciers linger still. 

 They give to it its greatest beauty. They are them- 

 selves magnificent, and with them survives a colony of 

 arctic animals and plants which can not exist in the 

 temperate climate of the less lofty mountains. These 

 arctic forms are as effectually isolated as shipwrecked 

 sailors on an island in mid-ocean. There is no refuge 

 for them beyond their haunts on ice-bound cliffs. 

 But even there the birds and animals are no longer safe 



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