alone 

 I Mount 







of Oregon and Upper California. 381 



the waters of the ocean here have made a deep inroad into the 

 land, rather than from a change of direction in the range. Its 

 limits to the north are not fully ascertained, yet from the best in- 

 formation at hand, it appears to reach far into the Russian territory. 

 It constitutes a barrier to commercial intercourse with the coast 

 except along the single great highway the Columbia. Frasers 

 river, near latitude 49°, has also obtained a passage through these 

 mountains ; but it plunges along in a succession of cataracts. 



In the course of the six hundred miles from Frasers River to 

 the Sacramento, latitudes 50° to 40°, the range contains seven 

 snowy peaks, varying from ten to fift< n or sixteen thousand feet 

 in height, — three north of the Columbia, and the others south. 



Rainier. St. H 



Hood. Jeffi 

 S ha sty. 



The main body of the Cascade range in Oregon is not over 

 five or six thousand feet in elevation. Its heights are therefore 

 but hills in comparison with the lofty cones above enumerated 

 which rise out of the chain. - In no part of the world, not even 

 beneath the Andes, has the writer been as deeply impressed with 

 the sublime in mountain scenery^ as when in sight of these 

 towering peaks. There are no rival heights around : they stand 



in solitary grandeur, wrapped about with perpetual snows. 

 t Rainier is in full view from the plains of Nisqually. 

 Mount St. Helens forms one of the landmarks seen in approach- 

 ing the coast. It is not less than 15,000 feet in height, and has 

 been estimated at 16,000 feet; the snows form an unbroken 

 mantle descending half way to its base. Mount Hood, of some- 

 what less altitude, is in sight from Vancouver. It stands majes- 

 tic among low crouching hills, with rugged frowning features. — 

 its summit enveloped about with a ragged coat of snow that half 

 covers its black rocks. Mount Shasty is another of these hoary 

 peaks : a view of its double summit is given at page 250. All these 

 cones were once active volcanoes, and Rainier and St. Helens are 

 said still to give off vapors and occasional showers of ashes. 

 Intermediate parts of the range consist of granitic, hornblende, 

 talcose and other rocks. 



The Sierra Nevada has a greater average altitude than the 

 Cascade range, and to a large extent is covered with snows. We 

 are not yet informed whether any of its peaks rise into solitary 

 cones, like those of Oregon. But the information obtained renders 

 it probable that they consist largely of granite and slate rocks. 

 The pass travelled by Fremont, near the head of the American 

 Fork, in latitude 38° 44', was found to be 9,338 feet high — two 

 thousand feet higher than the South Pass of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains — and points" in the range near by, rose above him several 

 thousand feet Again, at the head of Salmon Trout river in 



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