ssy walls stretching along the horizon and making a magnificent
display of their white wealth. The Coast Range in Oregon does not
perhaps average more than three thousand feet in height. Its snow does
not last long, most of its soil is fertile all the way to the summits,
and the greater part of the range may at some time be brought under
cultivation. The immense deposits on the great central uplift of the
Cascade Range are mostly melted off before the middle of summer by the
comparatively warm winds and rains from the coast, leaving only a few
white spots on the highest ridges, where the depth from drifting
has been greatest, or where the rate of waste has been diminished by
specially favorable conditions as to exposure. Only the great volcanic
cones are truly snow-clad all the year, and these are not numerous and
make but a small portion of the general landscape.

As we approach Oregon from the coast in summer, no hint of snowy
mountains can be seen, and it is only after we have sailed into the
country by the Columbia, or climbed some one of the commanding
summits, that the great white peaks send us greeting and make telling
advertisements of themselves and of the country over which they rule.
So, also, in coming to Oregon from the east the country by no means
impresses one as being surpassingly mountainous, the abode of peaks and
glaciers. Descending the spurs of the Rocky Mountains into the basin of
the Columbia, we see hot, hundred-mile plains, roughened here the there
by hills and ridges that look hazy and blue in the distance, until we
have pushed well to the westward. Then one white point after another
comes into sight to refresh the eye and the imagination; but they are
yet a long way off, and have much to say only to those who know them or
others of their kind. How grand they are, though insignificant-looking
on the edge of the vast landscape! What noble woods they nourish, and
emerald meadows and gardens! What springs and streams and waterfalls
sing about them and to what a multitude of happy creatures they give
homes and food!

The principal mountains of the range are Mounts Pitt, Scott, and
Thielson, Diamond Peak, the Three Sisters, Mounts Jefferson, Hood, St.
Helen's, Adams, Rainier, Aix, and Baker. Of these the seven first
named belong to Oregon, the others to Washington. They rise singly at
irregular distances from one another along the main axis of the range
or near it, with an elevation of from about e