a fascinating
study, though little may we see of their works and ways while their
storms go on. The glinting, swirling swarms fairly thicken the blast,
and all the air, as well as the rocks and trees, is as one smothering
mass of bloom, through the midst of which at close intervals come the
low, intense thunder-tones of the avalanches as they speed on their way
to fill the vast fountain hollows. Here they seem at last to have found
rest. But this rest is only apparent. Gradually the loose crystals by
the pressure of their own weight are welded together into clear ice,
and, as glaciers, march steadily, silently on, with invisible motion, in
broad, deep currents, grinding their way with irresistible energy to the
warmer lowlands, where they vanish in glad, rejoicing streams.

In the sober weather of Oregon lightning makes but little show. Those
magnificent thunderstorms that so frequently adorn and glorify the sky
of the Mississippi Valley are wanting here. Dull thunder and lightning
may occasionally be seen and heard, but the imposing grandeur of great
storms marching over the landscape with streaming banners and a network
of fire is almost wholly unknown.

Crossing the Cascade Range, we pass from a green to a gray country, from
a wilderness of trees to a wilderness of open plains, level or rolling
or rising here and there into hills and short mountain spurs. Though
well supplied with rivers in most of its main sections, it is generally
dry. The annual rainfall is only from about five to fifteen inches, and
the thin winter garment of snow seldom lasts more than a month or two,
though the temperature in many places falls from five to twenty-five
degrees below zero for a short time. That the snow is light over eastern
Oregon, and the average temperature not intolerably severe, is shown
by the fact that large droves of sheep, cattle, and horses live there
through the winter without other food or shelter than they find for
themselves on the open plains or down in the sunken valleys and gorges
along the streams.

When we read of the mountain ranges of Oregon and Washington with
detailed descriptions of their old volcanoes towering snow-laden and
glacier-laden above the clouds, one may be led to imagine that the
country is far icier and whiter and more mountainous than it is. Only
in winter are the Coast and Cascade Mountains covered with snow. Then
as seen from the main interior valleys they appear as comparatively
low, bo