s now extinguished
and their sides swathed in ice, have become in our day the row of
spectacular peaks extending from northern California to Puget Sound.
Hence also the long range of threatening summits which skirts Alaska's
southern shore, to-day the world's most active volcanic belt. Here it
was that Katmai's summit was lost in the mighty explosion of June, 1912,
one of enormous violence, which followed tremendous eruptions elsewhere
along the same coast, and is expected to be followed by others, perhaps
of even greater immensity and power.

These two volcanic belts contain each an active volcano which Congress
has made the centre of a national reservation. Lassen Peak, some wise
men believe, is the last exhibit of activity in the dying volcanism of
the Cascade Mountains. Mount Katmai is the latest and greatest exhibit
in a volcanic belt which is believed to be young and growing.

THE BUILDING OF THE CASCADES

Millions of years ago, in the period which geologists call Tertiary, the
pressure under that part of the crust of the earth which now is
Washington, Oregon, and northern California, became too powerful for
solid rock to withstand. Long lines of hills appeared parallel to the
sea, and gradually rose hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of feet. These
cracked, and from the long summit-fissures issued hot lava, which spread
over enormous areas and, cooling, laid the foundations for the coming
Cascade Mountains.

When the gaping fissures eased the pressure from beneath, they filled
with ash and lava except at certain vent holes, around which grew the
volcanoes which, when their usefulness as chimneys passed, became those
cones of ice and snow which now are the glory of our northwest.

There may have been at one time many hundreds of these volcanoes, big
and little. Most of them doubtless quickly perished under the growing
slopes of their larger neighbors, and, as they became choked with ash,
the lava which had been finding vent through them sought other doors of
escape, and found them in the larger volcanoes. Thus, by natural
selection, there survived at last that knightly company of monsters now
uniformed in ice, which includes, from north to south, such celebrities
as Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Mount
Hood, vanished Mount Mazama, Mount Shasta, and living Lassen Peak.

Whether or not several of these vast beacons lit Pacific's nights at one
time can never be known with certainty,