rocky ridges and yawning chasms of blackness. So cold, hard, and immovable it looks, that it is difficult to attribute to its volcanic forces the upheaval of this vast basaltic and plutonic mass over which we are traveling.
But this frozen aspect is a deceitful one, as we are aware, since our own eyes have beheld the fiery column shooting up from the old crater, followed by great volumes of dense, black smoke. The grand old mountain is not often stirred in these centuries of peace; but it holds within its bosom fires that have never gone out since the morning of creation.
The ascent of Mount Hood, owing to the road, is not difficult. Every summer parties go up it, and many memorials are deposited there of these visits. August, or the latter part of July, is the most favorable time to make the ascent, when the snow is neither too hard nor too soft. The earlier one can go with safety, the better; as there is likely to be, late in the season, a good deal of smoke from burning forests, which obscures the view. In clear weather, the panorama which can be enjoyed from the summit of Mount Hood is worth a journey across the continent to behold.
Mount St. Helen, though in Washington Territory, is reckoned among the Oregon mountains, because it is visible not only from the Columbia River, but from the heart of the Wallamet Valley. Not so high as Mount Hood, it is remarkable for the symmetry of its rounded dome. It is not difficult of ascent, except on account of the intervening forests. It is approached by following the north fork of the Cathlapootle or Lewis River, which enters the Columbia opposite the mouth of the Lower Wallamet. As the melting of snow in the mountains swells this stream to a rapid torrent in the early part of summer, the undertaking
