66 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



grand old palimpsest of the park region, inscrib- 

 ing new characters ; but still in its main telling 

 features it remains distinctly glacial. The 

 moraine soils are being leveled, sorted, refined, 

 re-formed, and covered with vegetation ; the pol- 

 ished pavements and scoring and other superficial 

 glacial inscriptions on the crumbling lavas are 

 being rapidly obliterated ; gorges are being cut in 

 the decomposed rhyolites and loose conglome- 

 rates, and turrets and pinnacles seem to be 

 springing up like growing trees ; while the gey- 

 sers are depositing miles of sinter and travertine. 

 Nevertheless, the ice-work is scarce blurred as 

 yet. These later effects are only spots and 

 wrinkles on the grand glacial countenance of the 

 park. 



Perhaps you have already said that you have 

 seen enough for a lifetime. But before you go 

 away you should spend at least one day and a 

 night on a mountain top, for a last general, 

 calming, settling view. Mount Washburn is a 

 good one for the purpose, because it stands in 

 the middle of the park, is unencumbered with 

 other peaks, and is so easy of access that the 

 climb to its summit is only a saunter. First your 

 eye goes roving around the mountain rim amid 

 the hundreds of peaks : some with plain flowing 

 skirts, others abruptly precipitous and defended 

 by sheer battlemented escarpments; flat-topped 

 or round ; heaving like sea-waves or spired and 



