ance, although not one of the highest. The best views of it are to be obtained from the hills near Dalles City.
From the Columbia and Wallamet rivers one gets just a glimpse of Mount Rainier, the grandest peak of the Cascade Range, being 14,444 feet in height. Seen at this distance, and obstructed by St. Helen, no proper idea of its magnificence can be obtained. It is only when the divide which separates the Cowlitz River from the Puget Sound country has been passed that its beautiful proportions can be estimated.
From the prairies south of the Sound, it seems to have a triple summit; this appearance being caused by the wearing away of the mountain about its craters, two in number. That it is an immense upheaval is evident from the breadth of its base, which is twenty-five or thirty miles. It has been ascended, with great labor in getting to its foot. Above the region of forest are beautiful green meadows, spangled with flowers of the most brilliant dyes, dotted over with small groves of balsam fir. In the depressions between these green ridges snow lies, even in August, making a charming contrast with their emerald brightness; and above them towers the broken, icy pinnacles of Rainier. From its summit may be seen the glaciers filling its gorges, crossed again and again by deep crevasses.
Mount Baker is another lofty snow-peak of Washington Territory, though so far north as to be seen only from the Sound, or the Straits of Juan de Fuca. More active as a volcano than the other peaks, it has suffered loss of height and change of form, consequent on the falling in of the walls of its crater, within the last five years. This mountain, too, has been ascended—an interesting account of which appeared in Harper's Magazine about two years ago.
