The Mountain that was 'God' Part 5

{p.086} But they do even more. Wherever lava flows occurred in the building of the Mountain, strata formed; and such stratification is clearly seen at intervals on the sides of the great rocks just mentioned. Its incline, of course, is that of the former surface. The strata point upward--not toward the summit which we see, but far above it. For this reason the geologists who have examined the aretes most closely are agreed that the peak has lost nearly two thousand feet of its height. It blew its own head off!

Such explosive eruptions are among the worst vices of volcanoes. Every visitor to Naples remembers how plainly the landscape north of Vesuvius tells of a prehistoric decapitation, which left only a low, broad platform, on the south rim of which the little Vesuvius that many of us have climbed was formed by later eruptions, while a part of the north rim is well defined in "Monte Somma." Similarly, here at home, Mt. Adams and Mt. Baker are truncated cones, while, on the other hand, St. Helens and Hood are still symmetrical.

Like Vesuvius, too, Rainier-Tacoma has built upon the plateau left when it lost its head. Peak Success, overlooking Indian Henry's, and Liberty Cap, the northern elevation, seen from Seattle and Tacoma, are nearly three miles apart on the west side of the broad summit. These are parts of the rim of the old crater. East of the line uniting them, and about two miles from each, the volcano built up an elevation now known as Crater Peak, comprising two small adjacent craters. These burnt-out craters are now filled with snow, and where the rims touch, a big snow-hill rises--the strange creature of eddying winds that sweep up through the great flume cut by volcanic explosion and glacial action in the west side of the peak. (See pp. 14, 27, and 52.)

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.087}: View South from Cowlitz Glacier: elevation, 8,000 feet. Seven miles away are the huge eastern peaks of the Tatoosh. The Cascades beyond break in Cispus Pa.s.s, and rise, on the left, to the glacier summits called Goat Peaks. The truncated cone of Mt. Adams, more than forty miles away, crowns the sky-line.]

{p.088} [Ill.u.s.tration: These views show the larger of the two comparatively modern and small craters on the broad platform left by the explosion which decapitated the Peak. Prof. Flett measured this crater, and found it 1,600 feet from north to south, and 1,450 feet from east to west. The other, much smaller, adjoins it so closely that their rims touch. Together they form an eminence of 1,000 feet (Crater Peak), at a distance of about two miles from North Peak (Liberty Cap) and South Peak (Peak Success). At the junction of their rims is the great snow hill (on right of view) called "Columbia's Crest." This is the actual summit. The volcano having long been inactive, the craters are filled with snow, but the residual heat causes steam and gases to escape in places along their rims.]

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.089}]

This mound of snow is the present actual top. Believing it the highest point in the United States south of Alaska, a party of climbers, in 1894, named it "Columbia's Crest." This was long thought to be the Mountain's rightful distinction, for different computations by experts gave various elevations ranging as high as 14,529 feet, with none prior to 1902 giving less than 14,444 feet. Even upon a government map published as late as 1907 the height is stated as 14,526 feet. In view of this variety of expert opinion, the flattering name, not unnaturally, has stuck, in spite of the fact that the government geographers have now adopted, for the Dictionary of Alt.i.tudes, the height found by the United States Geological Survey in 1902, 14,363 feet. That decision leaves the honor of being the loftiest peak between Alaska and Mexico to Mt. Whitney in the California Sierra (14,502 feet).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Steam Caves in one of the craters. The residual heat of the extinct volcano causes steam and gases to escape from vents in the rims of the two small craters. Alpinists often spend a night in the caves thus formed in the snow.]

{p.089} [Ill.u.s.tration: North Peak, named "Liberty Cap" because of its resemblance to the Bonnet Rouge of the French Revolutionists.

Elevation, about 14,000 feet. View taken from the side of Crater Peak.

Distance, nearly two miles.]

The definitive map of the National Park which was begun last summer by the Geological Survey, with Mr. Francois E. Matthes in charge, will establish the elevations of all important landmarks in the Park. Among these will be the Mountain itself. Whether this will add much, if anything, to the current figure of the Dictionary is uncertain. In any case, the result will not lessen the pride of the Northwest in its great peak. A few feet of height signify nothing. No California mountain masked behind the Sierra can vie in majesty with this lonely pile that rises in stately grandeur from the sh.o.r.es of Puget Sound.

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.090}: Goat Peaks, glacier summits in the Cascades, southeast of the Mountain. Elevation, about 8,000 feet, A branch of the Cowlitz is seen flowing down from the glaciers above.]

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.091}: Copyright 1907, By W. P. Romans. Spray Park, from Fay Peak, showing the beautiful region between the Carbon and North Mowich Glaciers.]

{p.093} [Ill.u.s.tration: Ice-bound Lake in Cowlitz Park, with top of Little Tahoma in distance.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Creva.s.ses in Cowlitz Glacier, with waterfall dropping from Cowlitz Park, over basaltic cliffs.]

The wide area which the Mountain thrusts far up into the sky is a highly efficient condenser of moisture. Near to the Pacific as it is, its broad summit and upper slopes collect several hundred feet of snow each year from the warm Chinooks blowing in from the west. On all sides this vast ma.s.s presses down, hardened into solid granular neve, to feed the twelve primary glaciers. Starting eastward from Paradise Valley, these princ.i.p.al ice-streams are: Cowlitz and Ingraham glaciers; White or White River glacier, largest of all; Winthrop glacier, named in honor of Theodore Winthrop, in whose romance of travel, "The Canoe and the Saddle," the ancient Indian name "Tacoma"

was first printed; Carbon, North and South Mowich, Puyallup, North and South Tahoma, Kautz and Nisqually glaciers. The most important secondary glaciers, or "interglaciers," rising within the great rock wedges which I have described, are called Interglacier, Frying-Pan, {p.094} Stevens, Paradise and Van Trump. All of these are of the true Alpine type; that is, they are moving rivers of ice, as distinguished from "continental glaciers," the ice caps which cover vast regions in the Arctic and Antarctic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Crossing a precipitous slope on White Glacier. Little Tahoma in distance.]

In thus naming the glaciers, I have followed the time-honored local usage, giving the names applied by the earliest explorers and since used with little variation in the Northwest. There has been some confusion, however, chiefly owing to a recent government map. For instance, in that publication, White glacier, properly so called because it is the main feeder of the White river, was named Emmons glacier, after S. F. Emmons, a geologist who was one of the first to visit it. It is interesting to note that in his reports Mr. Emmons himself called this the White River glacier. On the other hand, the map mentioned, after displacing the name White from the larger glacier to which it logically belongs, gave it to the ice-stream feeding another branch of the White river, namely, the glacier always locally called the Winthrop, and so called by Prof. Russell in his report to the Geological Survey in 1897.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1910, By S. C. Smith. Climbing Goat Peaks, in the Cascades, with the Mountain twenty miles away.]

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.095}: Looking up White Glacier (right), from a point on its lower end, showing vast amount of morainal debris carried down by this glacier. Little Tahoma in middle distance; Gibraltar and Cathedral Rocks on extreme right; "Goat Island" on left. Elevation of camera, about 4,500 feet. Note the "cloud banner" which the crag has flung to the breeze.]

{p.096} [Ill.u.s.tration: The Mountain seen from the top of Cascade range, with party starting west over the forest trails for Paradise.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Great moraine built by Frying-Pan Glacier on side of "Goat Island."]

Similarly, North and South Mowich, names of the streams to which they give birth, were miscalled Willis and Edmunds glaciers, after Bailey Willis, geologist, and George F. Edmunds, late United States senator, who visited the Mountain many years ago. The Mowich rivers were so named by the Indians from the fact that, in the great rocks on the northwest side of the peak, just below the summit, they saw the figure of the mowich, or deer. The deer of rock is there still--he may be seen in several pictures in this volume,--and so long as he keeps to his icy pasture it will be difficult to displace his name from the glaciers and rivers below. The southern branch of the great Tahoma glacier, locally called South Tahoma glacier, this map renamed Wilson glacier, for A. D. Wilson, Emmons's companion in exploration. Finally, the name of General Hazard Stevens, who, {p.097} with Mr. Van Trump, made the first ascent of the peak in 1870, was misplaced, being given to the west branch of the Nisqually, whereas the general usage has fixed the name of that pioneer upon the well-defined interglacier east of the Paradise, and above Stevens canyon, which in its prime it carved on the side of the Mountain. General Stevens himself writes me from Boston that this is the correct usage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Coming around Frying-Pan Glacier, below Little Tahoma.]

Such errors in an official doc.u.ment are the more inexcusable because their author ignored local names recognized in the earlier publications of the government and its agents. In such matters, too, the safe principle is to follow local custom where that is logical and established. The new map prepared by Mr. Ricksecker, and printed herewith, returns to the older and better usage. Unless good reason can be shown for departing from it, his careful compilation should be followed. Willis Wall, above Carbon Glacier, appropriately recalls the work of Bailey Willis. The explorations of Emmons and Wilson may well be commemorated by landmarks as yet unnamed, not by displacing fit names long current.

In connection with his survey of the Park, Mr. Matthes has been authorized to collect local testimony as to established names within that area, and to invite suggestions as to appropriate names for landmarks not yet definitely named. His report will doubtless go to the National Geographic Board for final decision on the names recommended. Thus, in time, we may hope to see this awkward and confusing tangle in mountain nomenclature straightened out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sunrise above the clouds, seen from Camp Curtis, on the Wedge, (alt.i.tude 9,500 feet); White Glacier below. This camp was named by the Mountaineers in 1909, in honor of Asahel Curtis, the Seattle climber.]

{p.098} [Ill.u.s.tration: Looking up from "Snipe Lake," a small pond below Interglacier, to the head of Winthrop Glacier and Liberty Cap.]

The written history of the Mountain begins with its discovery by Captain George Vancouver. Its first appearance upon a map occurs in Vancouver's well-known report, published in 1798, after his death: "Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and around the World, 1790-1795."

It was in the summer of 1792, shortly after Vancouver had entered the Sound, he tells us, that he first saw "a very remarkable high round mountain, covered with snow, apparently at the southern extremity of the distant snowy range." A few days later he again mentions "the round snowy mountain," "which, after my friend Rear-Admiral Rainier, I distinguished by the name of Mount Rainier." Nearly all of Captain Vancouver's friends were thus distinguished, at the cost of the Indian names, to which doubtless he gave no thought. Sonorous "Kulshan" and unique "Whulge" were lost, in order that we might celebrate "Mr.

Baker" and "Mr. Puget," junior officers of Vancouver's expedition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pa.s.sing a big creva.s.se on Interglacier. Sour-Dough Mountains on the right, with Grand Park beyond: St. Elmo Pa.s.s in center, Snipe Lake and Glacier Basin in depression.]

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.099}: View north from Mt. Ruth (part of the Wedge), with Interglacier in foreground, the Snipe Lake country below, Sour-Dough Mountains on right, Grand Park in middle distance, and Mt. Baker, with the summits of the Selkirks, far away in Canada, on the horizon.]

{p.100} [Ill.u.s.tration: Camp on St. Elmo Pa.s.s, north side of the Wedge, between Winthrop Glacier and Interglacier. Elevation, 9,000 feet. Winthrop Glacier and the fork of White River which it feeds are seen in distance below. The man is Maj. E. S. Ingraham, a veteran explorer of the Mountain, after whom Ingraham Glacier is named.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: East face of the Mountain, from south side of the Wedge, showing route to the summit over White Glacier.]

Happily, the fine Indian name "Tacoma" was not offered up a sacrifice to such obscurity. Forgotten as he is now, Peter Rainier was, in his time, something of a figure. After some ransacking of libraries, I have found a page that gives us a glimpse of a certain hard-fought though unequal combat, in the year 1778, between an American privateer and two British s.h.i.+ps. It is of interest in connection with "Mount Rainier," the name recognized by the Geographic Board at Was.h.i.+ngton in 1889 as official.

On the 8th of July, the 14-gun s.h.i.+p Ostrich, Commander Peter Rainier, on the Jamaica station, in company with the 10-gun armed brig Lowestoffe's Prize, chased a large brig. After a long run, the Ostrich brought the brig, which was the American privateer Polly, to action, and, after an engagement of three hours'

duration (by which time the Lowestoffe's Prize had arrived up and {p.101} taken part in the contest), compelled her to surrender.

* * * * Captain Rainier was wounded by a musket ball through the left breast; he could not, however, be prevailed upon to go below, but remained on deck till the close of the action. He was posted, and appointed to command the 64-gun s.h.i.+p Burford.

(_Allen: "Battles of the British Navy,"_ Vol. I., London, 1872).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Admiral Peter Rainier, of the British Navy, in whose honor Captain George Vancouver, in 1792, named the great peak "Mt.

Rainier."]

Before quitting with Vancouver and eighteenth-century history of the Mountain, I note that our peak enjoyed a further honor. Captain Vancouver records an interesting event that took place on the anniversary of King George's birth;--"on which auspicious day," he says, "I had long since designed to take formal possession of all the countries we had lately been employed in exploring, in the name of, and for, His Britannic Majesty, his heirs and successors." And he did!

[Ill.u.s.tration: First picture of the Mountain, from Vancouver's "Voyage of Discovery," London, 1798.]

After Vancouver's brief mention, and the caricature of our peak printed in his work, literature is practically silent about the Mountain for more than sixty years. Those years witnessed the failure of England's memorable struggle to make good Vancouver's "annexation."

Oregon was at last a state. Out of its original area Was.h.i.+ngton Territory had just been carved. In that year of 1853 {p.102} came Theodore Winthrop, of the old New England family, who was destined to a lasting and pathetic fame as an author of delightful books and a victim of the first battle of the Civil War. Sailing into what is now the harbor of the city of Tacoma, he there beheld the peak. We feel his enthusiasm as he tells of the appeal it made to him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Climbers on St. Elmo Pa.s.s, seen from the upper side.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: St. Elmo Pa.s.s from north side. The name was given by Maj. Ingraham in 1886 because of a remarkable exhibition of St. Elmo's fire seen here during a great storm. A cabin is needed at this important crossing.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Avalanche Camp (11,000 feet), on the high, ragged chine between Carbon and Winthrop. Carbon Glacier, seen below, has cut through a great range, leaving Mother Mountains on the left and the Sluiskins, right.]

We had rounded a point, and opened Puyallop Bay, a breadth of sheltered calmness, when I was suddenly aware of a vast white shadow in the water. What cloud, piled ma.s.sive on the horizon, could cast an image so sharp in outline, so full of vigorous detail of surface? No cloud, but a cloud compeller. It was a giant mountain dome of snow, swelling and seeming to fill the aerial spheres, as its image displaced the blue deeps of tranquil water. Only its splendid snows were visible, high in the unearthly regions of clear blue noonday sky.

Kingly and alone stood this majesty, without any visible consort, though far to the north and the south its brethren and sisters dominated their realms. Of all the peaks from California to {p.103} Frazer's River, this one before me was royalest. Mount Regnier[5] Christians have dubbed it, in stupid nomenclature perpetuating the name of somebody or n.o.body. More melodiously the Siwashes call it Tacoma,--a generic term also applied to all snow peaks. Tacoma, under its ermine, is a crushed volcanic dome, or an ancient volcano fallen in, and perhaps not yet wholly lifeless. The domes of snow are stateliest. There may be more of feminine beauty in the cones, and more of masculine force and hardihood in the rough pyramids, but the great domes are calmer and more divine.

[Footnote 5: Winthrop's error was a common one at that time and has remained current till to-day. The admiral's grandfather, the Huguenot exile, was "Regnier," but his descendants anglicized the patronymic into "Rainier."]