THE HIGH CASCADES OF CENTRAL OREGON 
579 
areas containing peculiar rock forma- 
tions ; the Grand Canyon in Arizona, the 
largest and most impressive gorge in the 
world. Several bills have been intro- 
duced in Congress to make a national 
park of the Grand Canyon, but none of 
them has become law. 
The Big Hole Battlefield National 
Monument in iMontana, which is tuider 
the supervision of the War Department, 
includes an area surrounding a stone 
monument erected in memory of the men 
killed at the battle of the Big Hole dur- 
ing the Nez Percez Indian War of 1877. 
SCENES AMONG THE HIGH CASCADES 
CENTRAL OREGON 
By Ira A. Williams, of the Iowa State College 
IN 
A GLANCE at any map of Oregon 
will recall the general arrange- 
ment of its surface features. The 
State is separated into two major prov- 
inces by the main axis of the Cascade 
Range, which extends in an almost due 
north-south direction from the Columbia 
River to the California boundary. 
This "backbone'" is marked by a suc- 
cession of prominent mountain peaks, 
with snow-capped Mount Hood, at 11,225 
feet, standing sentinel at the northern 
end of the series. At the south, and well 
"beyond the Oregon - California border, 
rises Mount Shasta, where the Cascades 
and the Sierras unite, guardian monarch 
to the northward as well as over a vast 
California domain. 
Between these termini the broken 
crest-line of the range consists of suc- 
cessive volcanic peaks, interspersed with 
more or less level spaces, due either to 
expansive mountain parks and meadows 
or to broad, barren, lava-covered areas. 
The whole range has been largely built 
by the eruption and outspreading of vol- 
canic materials, and every peak that to- 
day appears along its picturesque sky-line 
marks the site of a former opening 
from which the materials of construction 
issued (see map on page 626). 
Chief among the prominent points of 
the range, in its 250-mile stretch across 
Oregon, are Mount Jefiferson, with an 
altitude of 10,350 feet; the Three Sisters 
peaks, each approximately 10,250 feet 
high ; Diamond Peak, 8,250 feet ; Mount 
Thielsen, 9,250 feet in height ; and, at 
the south end of the range, Blount Pitt, 
which rises 9,760 feet above the sea. 
Mount Mazama should also be men- 
tioned. It stands next to J\Iount Pitt, at 
the south, and its crater is occupied by 
the celebrated Crater Lake. 
All of these and scores of others are 
the broken remnants of once active vol- 
canoes. Of those mentioned, the five 
highest are snow-mantled and known to 
bear one or more living glaciers on their 
slopes. 
It is an observation of considerable 
interest that, south of the Columbia, no 
river has yet managed to break through 
this vast barrier, and for many portions 
of the summit of the range but poor sur- 
face drainage is provided. Barrier lakes, 
formed through interference with former 
drainage-ways by volcanic processes and 
occasionally by glacial action, are there- 
fore plentifully distributed along the 
higher slopes of the range across the 
State. 
Few of the many prominent peaks of 
the high Cascades in Oregon have been 
fully explored. With the exception of 
IMounts Hood and Mazama, which have 
been rendered accessible through both 
Federal and private enterprise, the other 
conspicuous peaks of the range can be 
reached only by expeditions organized 
for the purpose. Rarely are they visited 
by the individual. 
While portions have been mapped by 
the government topographers and mem- 
bers of the forest service, perhaps the 
most signal results have been accom- 
plished among the less accessible of the 
glacier peaks by a mountain - climbing 
