the students of nature, like the 
musician, experience more than 
they express. 
The first writer to give detailed 
expression of enthusiasm about 
the mountain was Theodore Win- 
throp, in his book "Canoe and 
Saddle." After a voyage of more 
than lOO miles in a canoe paddled 
by Indians, Mr. Winthrop, in 
1853, rounded a point at the en- 
trance of the present Tacoma 
Harbor in full view of the moun- 
tain. 
"We had rounded a point and 
opened Puyallup Bay, a breadth 
of sheltered calmness, when I, 
lifting sleepy eyelids for a dreamy 
stare about, was suddenly aware 
of a vast white mountain dome 
of snow swelling and seeming to 
fill the aerial spheres as its image 
displaced the deeps of tranquil 
waters. . . . Kingly and alone 
stood this majesty, without any 
visible comrade or consort, though 
far to the north and south its 
brethren and sisters dominated 
their realms, each in isolated sov- 
ereignty rising above the pine- 
darkened sierra of the Cascade 
Mountains. . . . Of all the peaks 
from California to Frazer's River, 
this one before me was royalest. 
Mount Rainier, white men have 
dubbed it, perpetually the name of 
somebody or nobody ; more melo- 
diously, the Indians call it Tacoma." 
Again Mr. Winthrop expresses 
himself from his saddle, while 
riding toward the mountains : "I 
Tiad been following thus for hours 
the blind path — harsh, darksome, 
and utterly lonely — urging on 
with no outlook, encountering no 
landmark. ... As I looked across 
the solemn surges of forests, sud- 
denly above their somber green 
appeared Tacoma. Large and 
neighbor it stood, so near that 
every jewel of its snow fields seemed to 
send me a separate ray, yet not so near 
but that I could with one look take in its 
whole image, from clear-cut edge to 
•edge." 
Mr. Winthrop pictured almost exactly 
the condition of the world-old fires, at 
the present day not entirely lifeless. "If 
Photo by A. 11. Barnes 
avalanche; or deer's-tongu]E; uly 
the giant fires had ever burned under that 
cold summit, they had long since died out. 
The dome that swelled up had crusted 
over and then fallen in upon itself. . . , 
Only the thought of eternal peace arose 
from this heaven-upbearing, monument- 
like incense, and, overflowing, filled the 
world with deep and holy calm." . . . 
617 
