ice-sheet that overswept Vancouver Island and filled the strait
between it and the mainland.

On the way up to Olympia, then a hopeful little town situated at the
end of one of the longest fingers of the Sound, one is often reminded
of Lake Tahoe, the scenery of the widest expanses is so lake-like in
the clearness and stillness of the water and the luxuriance of the
surrounding forests. Doubling cape after cape, passing uncounted
islands, new combinations break on the view in endless variety,
sufficient to satisfy the lover of wild beauty through a whole life.
When the clouds come down, blotting out everything, one feels as if
at sea; again lifting a little, some islet may be seen standing
alone with the tops of its trees dipping out of sight in gray misty
fringes; then the ranks of spruce and cedar bounding the water's edge
come to view; and when at length the whole sky is clear the colossal
cone of Mt. Rainier may be seen in spotless white, looking down over
the dark woods from a distance of fifty or sixty miles, but so high
and massive and so sharply outlined, it seems to be just back of a
strip of woods only a few miles wide.

Mt. Rainier, or Tahoma (the Indian name), is the noblest of the
volcanic cones extending from Lassen Butte and Mt. Shasta along
the Cascade Range to Mt. Baker. One of the most telling views of it
hereabouts is obtained near Tacoma. From a bluff back of the town it
was revealed in all its glory, laden with glaciers and snow down to
the forested foothills around its finely curved base. Up to this time
(1879) it had been ascended but once. From observations made on the
summit with a single aneroid barometer, it was estimated to be about
14,500 feet high. Mt. Baker, to the northward, is about 10,700 feet
high, a noble mountain. So also are Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and