Hood River. In their vicinity the earth gives forth a hollow, reverberating sound suggestive of openings beneath. The entrance to the largest cave is down a well-like shaft, by means of a rope. The apartment here is about eighty feet in diameter, and square. The walls are solid ice, the floor and ceiling supporting huge formations resembling stalactites and stalagmites, which when illuminated by torches give out a splendid display of colors. The air in these caves is clear, cold, and dry, the temperature being too low to permit of extended explorations. Is there buried here an immense glacier, or does there exist a combination of causes in the form of chemical constituents to produce ice ? Let the scientists decide.
Northwest of Mount Adams, and a hundred miles or more north of Hood, is Mount St. Helen, so named by Broughton, in 1792,—another mountain of Washington which enters into the panorama of snow-peaks seen from the Columbia River. It is, presumably, nine thousand seven hundred and fifty feet in height, and remarkable for its dome-like symmetry of outline. It is approached from the Columbia by the north fork of the Cathla-. pootle, or Lewis, River, and is not difficult of ascent. Mount St. Helen has been repeatedly known to throw out steam and ashes, scattering the latter over the country for a hundred miles to the eastward in 1832, so obscuring the daylight as to make it necessary to burn candles. On the southern slope is a hot spring that keeps the rocks always bare, which spot goes by the name of The Bear,—no pun intended.
I do not pretend to have ascended even one of the many snow-peaks of the Northwest. It requires strength and woodcraft, as well as alpine experience, to explore the Oregon mountains on their western flanks, where the canons are deep and steep, where frightful precipices are to be scaled with ropes, and changes of temperature to be encountered, before reaching the snow-fields. Therefore I have contented myself with achieving an altitude of eleven thousand feet in some places and between seven thousand and eight thousand in others, and have taken my impressions at second-hand for the greater heights. The railroads of the West are great educators in this respect. They carry us easily and without asking our consent right into the heart of the great ranges, and show to the most delicate woman
