s already
taken on the venerable and deeply-scarred physiognomy of a veteran. It
is no longer merely an overgrown boy among the hills, but, cut and
torn by the ice of centuries, it is fast assuming the dignity and
interest of a patriarch of the mountains.

[Illustration: Copyright, 1897, By E. S. Curtis. Reflection Lake,
below Pinnacle Peak and the Mountain.]

To some, no doubt, the smooth, youthful contours of an active volcano
seem more beautiful than the rugged grandeur of the Weisshorn. The
perfect cone of Mt. St. Helens, until recently in eruption, pleases
them more than the broad dome of Mt. Adams, rounded by an explosion in
the unknown past. But for those who love nature and the story written
upon its {p.079} face, mountains have character as truly as men,
and they show it in their features as clearly.

[Illustration {p.078}: Looking up from Cowlitz Chimneys to Gibraltar
and the summit. 1, Crater and Columbia's Crest. 2, Peak Success. 3,
Upper snow fields of Nisqually Glacier. 4, Gibraltar Rock. 5, Cowlitz
Cleaver. 6, Cathedral Rocks. 7, Little Tahoma. 8, Cowlitz Glacier. 9,
Ingraham Glacier, emptying into the Cowlitz.]

[Illustration: Divide of Paradise and Stevens Glaciers. Once probably
separated by a chine of rock, they are now one save for a slight
elevation in their bed, which turns them respectively toward Paradise
Valley and Stevens Canyon.]

[Illustration: Old Moraine of Stevens Glacier. Now comparatively small
and harmless, this glacier did heavy work in its prime. Witness,
Stevens Canyon (p. 66) and this huge pile of debris, showing that some
time ago the glacier, finding a cliff in its way, cut it down and
dumped it here.]

Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the monarch of the
Cascades. No longer the huge conical pimple which a volcano erected on
the earth's crust, it bears upon it the history of its own explosion,
which scattered its top far over the landscape, and of its losing
battle with the sun, which, employing the heaviest of all {p.080}
tools, is steadily destroying it. It has already lost a tenth of its
height and a third of its bulk. The ice is cutting deeper and deeper
into its sides. Upon three of them, it has excavated great
amphitheaters, which it is ceaselessly driving back toward the heart
of the peak. As if to compensate for losses in size and shapeliness,
the Mountain presents the most important phenomena of glacial action
to be seen in the United States.

[Illustra