52 YEARBOOK, PUBLIC MUSEUM, MILWAUKEE [Vol. II, 



miles long, and rival in magnitude, any of the glaciers of the Alpine 

 region of Europe. They descend from the summit radiating in all 

 directions like the petals of a flower. Many of them reach far down 

 the slopes of the mountain, and a few extend some distance beyond 

 its base. 



Mt. Rainier stands twelve miles west of the main line of the Cascade 

 Range and overlooks the low ridges that continue westward to the 

 vicinity of Puget Sound. It is distinctly visible from Seattle and 

 Tacoma and appears from either of these cities, to rise directly from 

 sea level — so low are the ranges about its base. The average altitude 

 of the mountains by which it is surrounded, however, is approximately 

 six thousand feet. The point where the stage road enters the National 

 Park, has been determined by accurate measurement to be two thou- 

 sand and three feet above the sea. The mountain is so large and 

 reaches to such a great height that its sister mountains appear as dwarfs 

 in comparison to it. Only Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helen's and Mt. Hood, 

 all of which are visible from its lower slopes, compare in any way 

 with the magnitude of Mt. Rainier. The ridges between, when viewed 

 from above, seem to merge into a rather continuous but uneven plat- 

 form. 



Mt. Rainier stands 14,408 feet above sea level and, in round num- 

 bers, ten thousand feet above the country at its immediate base, and 

 covers about one hundred square miles of territory. It is not a perfect 

 cone, but has been much eroded by the ice which gathers in streams 

 upon its slopes. Like all other volcanoes, it has been built up by the 

 material thrown from the crater during eruptions. Cinders, volcanic 

 ashes, and flows of lava can be seen upon its slopes and it is thought 

 to have attained, at one time, a much greater altitude than at present, 

 probably about sixteen thousand feet. This figure is computed from 

 the slope of the lava and cinder layers which are visible on the moun- 

 tain today. It is supposed that a great explosion destroyed the top 

 part of the mountain and reduced its height two thousand feet or more. 

 A great crater was then left at the summit, which today is filled with 

 two later and smaller cinder cones. Thus there are formed the three 

 summit peaks of the present mountain. The actual summit is a low, 

 rounded cone nearly buried beneath snow slopes and rising about four 

 hundred feet above the rim of the former crater. This upper platform 

 is so broad that from no point at the mountain's base can its actual 

 summit be seen, and the aspect of the summit changes in form as one 

 travels around the mountain from point to point. Some of the rem- 



