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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



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 numer- 

 ous 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 uninviting, are not to be 

 despised. They have proved a blessing 

 to more than one party that has found 

 itself compelled to remain overnight, 

 on the summit, saving them from death 

 in the icy gales. 



That Mount Rainier should still 

 retain so much of its internal heat is not 

 surprising in view of the recency of its 

 eruptions. It is known to have been 

 active at intervals during the last 

 century, and actual record exists of 

 slight eruptions in 1843, 1854, 1858, 

 and 1870. Indian legends mention a 

 great cataclysmal outburst at an earlier 

 period. 



At present the volcano may be re- 

 garded as dormant and no apprehension 

 need be felt as to the possibility of an 

 early renewal of its activity. 



In spite of Mount Rainier's continued 

 activity until within the memory of 

 man, its sides appear to have been snow 

 clad for a considerable length of time. 

 Indeed, so intense and so long-con- 

 tinued has been the eroding action of the 

 ice that the cone is now deeply ice- 

 scarred and furrowed. Most of its 

 outer layers, in fact, appear already to 

 have been stripped away. 



From the rim points downward the 

 ice cover of the cone divides into a 

 number of distinct stream-like tongues 

 or glaciers, each sunk in a great hollow 

 pathway of its own. Between these 

 ice-worn trenches the uneroded portions 

 of the cone stand out in high relief, 

 forming as a rule huge triangular 

 "wedges," heading at the sharp rim 

 points and spreading thence downward 



to the mountain's base. There they 

 assume the aspect of more gently slop- 

 ing, grassy table-lands, the charming 

 alpine meadows of which Paradise Park 

 and Spray Park are the most famous. 

 Separating these upland parks are the 

 profound ice-cut canyons which, be- 

 yond the glacier ends, widen out into 

 densely forested valleys, each contain- 

 ing a swift-flowing river. No less than a 

 dozen of these ice-fed torrents radiate 

 from the volcano in all directions, while 

 numerous lesser streams course from 

 the snow fields between the glaciers. 

 Thus the cone of Mount Rainier is 

 seen to be dissected from its summit to 

 its foot. Sculptured by its own glacier 

 mantle, its slopes have become diversi- 

 fied with a fretwork of ridges, peaks 

 and canyons. 



NISQUALLY GLACIER. 



The first ice one meets on approaching 

 the mountain from Longmire Springs 

 lies in the upper end of the Nisqually 

 Valley. The wagon road, which up to 

 this point follows the west side of the 

 valley, winding in loops and curves 

 along the heavily wooded mountain 

 flank, here ventures out upon the rough 

 bowlder bed of the Nisqually River and 

 crosses the foaming torrent on a pic- 

 turesque wooden bridge. A scant 

 thousand feet above this structure, 

 blocking the valley to a height of some 

 400 feet, looms a huge shapeless pile of 

 what seems at first sight only rock 

 debris, gray and chocolate in color. It 

 is the dirt-stained end of one of the 

 largest glaciers the Nisqually. From a 

 yawning cave in its front issues the 

 Nisqually stream, a river full fledged 

 from the start. 



The altitude here, it should be noted, 

 is a trifle under 4,000 feet; hence the 

 ice in view lies more than 10,000 feet 

 below the summit of the mountain, the 

 place of its origin. And in this state- 

 ment is strikingly summed up the 

 whole nature and economy of a glacier 

 such as the Nisqually. 



A glacier is not a mere stationary 

 blanket of snow and ice clinging inert 

 to the mountain flank. It is a slowly 

 moving streamlike body that descends 

 by virtue of its own weight. The upper 



