238 
PARK AND C EMETERY. 
GLIMPSES OF OUR NATIONAL PARKS 
VI=-THE MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK. 
Thus are born the glaciers, for the snow 
under its own pressure quickly hardens into 
ice. Through twenty-eight valleys, self- 
carved in the solid rock, flow these rivers 
of ice, now turning, as rivers of water 
turn, to avoid the harder rock strata, now 
roaring over precipices like congealed wa- 
terfalls, now rippling, like water currents, 
over rough bottoms, pushing, pouring re- 
lentlessly on until they reach those parts 
of their courses where warmer air turns 
them into rivers of water. 
There are forty-eight square miles of 
these glaciers, ranging in width from five 
hundred feet to a full mile and in thick- 
ness from fifty feet to many hundreds, 
perhaps even more than a thousand feet. 
MT. RAINIER, MT. RAINIER NATIONAL 
In the northwestern corner of the United 
States rises, from the Cascade Mountains, 
a series of extinct volcanos ice-clad from 
summit to foot the year around. Fore- 
most among them, counting from south to 
north, are Mount Shasta in California; 
Mount Hood in Oregon ; Mount St. Hel- 
ens, Mount Adams, Mount Rainier, and 
Mount Baker in Washington. Once, in the 
dim ages when America was making, they 
blazed across the sea like huge beacons. 
Today, their fires quenched, they suggest a 
stalwart band of Knights of the Ages, hel- 
meted in snow, armored in ice, standing at 
parade upon a carpet patterned gorgeously 
in wild flowers. 
Easily chief of this knightly band is 
Mount Rainier, a giant towering 14,408 
feet above tidewater in Puget Sound. 
Home-bound sailors far at sea mend their 
courses from his silver summit. Travel- 
ers over land catch the sun glint from his 
shining sides at a distance of more than 
one hundred and fifty miles. 
This mountain has a glacier system far 
exceeding in size and impressive beauty 
that of any other in the United States. 
From its summit and sirques twenty-eight 
named rivers of ice pour slowly down its 
sides. There are others unnamed. Seen 
upon the map, as if from an aeroplane, one 
thinks of it as an enormous frozen octo- 
pus stretching icy tenacles down upon 
every side among the rich gardens of wild 
flowers and splendid forests of fir and ce- 
dars below. 
BIRTH OF THE GLACIERS. 
Every winter the moisture-laden winds 
ON THE WAY TO PARADISE VALLEY, MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK. 
PARK. 
from the Pacific, suddenly cooled against 
its summit, deposit upon its top and sides 
enormous snows. These, settling in the 
mile-wide crater which was left after a 
great explosion in some prehistoric age, 
carried away perhaps two thousand feet of 
the volcano’s former height, press with 
overw'helming weight down the mountain’s 
sloping sides. 
Mount Rainier is nearly three miles high, 
measured from sea level. It rises nearly 
two miles above its immediate base. Once 
it was a complete cone like the famous 
Fujiyama, the sacred mountain of Japan. 
Then it was probably 16,000 feet high. 
Indian legends tell of the great eruption 
which blew its top off. 
The National Park, which incloses Mount 
Rainier, is about eighteen miles square, con- 
taining three hundred and twenty-four 
square miles. It is easily reached by rail- 
road and automobile from neighboring cit- 
ies. A new automobile road enables stages 
to bring visitors to beautiful Paradise Val- 
ley, whose flowered slopes are bordered by 
the great Nisqually, Paradise, and Stevens 
glaciers. One may reach this point in four 
hours from Tacoma and return the same 
