648 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



been resolved into a sea of wavelike 

 crests and peaks. 



Mount Rainier stands, in round 

 numbers, 10,000 feet high above its im- 

 mediate base, and covers 100 square 

 miles of territory, or one-third of the 

 area of Mount Rainier National Park. 

 In shape it is not a simple cone tapering 

 to a slender, pointed summit like Fuji 

 Yama, the great volcano of Japan. It 

 is, rather, a broadly truncated mass 

 resembling an enormous tree stump with 

 spreading base and irregularly broken 

 top. Its life history has been a varied 

 one. Like all volcanoes, Ranier has 

 built up its cone with materials ejected 



cinder cones. Successive feeble erup- 

 tions added to their height until at last 

 they formed together a low, rounded 

 dome the eminence that now consti- 

 tutes the mountain's summit. It rises 

 only about 400 feet above the rim of the 

 old crater, and is an inconspicuous 

 feature, not readily identifiable from all 

 sides as the highest point. In fact, so 

 broad is the mountain's crown that from 

 no point at its base can one see the top. 

 The higher portions of the old crater 

 rim, moreover, rise to elevations within 

 a few hundred feet of the summit, and, 

 especially when viewed from below, 

 stand out boldly as separate peaks that 



Photo by Matthes. 



THE TATOOSH RANGE, FROM PARADISE GLACIER. 



by its own eruptions with cinders and 

 bombs (steam-shredded particles and 

 lumps of lava), and with occasional 

 flows of liquid lava that have solified 

 into layers of hard, basaltic rock. At 

 one time it attained an altitude of not 

 less than 16,000 feet, if one may judge 

 by the steep inclination of the lava and 

 cinder layers visible in its flanks. 

 Then a great explosion followed that 

 destroyed the top part of the mountain, 

 and reduced its height by some 2,000 

 feet. The volcano was left beheaded, 

 and with a capacious hollow crater, 

 surrounded by a jagged rim. 



Later on this great cavity, which 

 measured nearly 3 miles across, from 

 south to north, was filled by two small 



mask and seem to overshadow the 

 central dome. Especially prominent are 

 Peak Success (14,150 feet) on the 

 southwest side, and Liberty Cap (14,- 

 112 feet) on the northwest side. 



The altitude of the main summit has 

 for many years been in doubt. Several 

 figures have been announced from time 

 to time, no two of them in agreement 

 with each other; but all of these, it is to 

 be observed, were obtained by more or 

 less approximate methods. In 1913 the 

 United States Geological Survey, in 

 connection with its topographic surveys 

 of the Mount Rainier National Park, 

 was able to make a new series of meas- 

 urements by triangulation methods at 

 close ragne. These give the peak an 



