Curiosities of Oregon.
It is difficult to tell, in making out a history of a country, what would be a curiosity and what would not, to readers that are familiar with descriptions of country scenery. I have selected a few that are considered by some as curiosities, as follows.
Mount Hood and its glacial sisters.
Bear Lake of Bear River.
Soda Springs.
Hot Springs.
Cascade Falls.
Mount Hood is one of the glacial peaks of the Cascade range of mountains. It is situated about 50 miles a little south of east from Oregon city, from whose vicinity it can be seen, and about 30 miles south of the Columbia river. Its height above tide water is about 11,721 feet. Rain seldom falls upon this mountain. Whenever it is enveloped by clouds, their contents are generally deposited in the form of snow. And in the summer season, the spectator from a neighboring mountain may frequently see it glistening with a brilliant white covering of snow, when only a few minutes before it had presented a mottled appearance of naked precipitous rocks, glacial prominences, huge caverns and deep ravines, so rapid is the passage of the clouds across the summit of this mountain. Alternately, during the summer season, the top of this mountain is coverd with clouds and then illuminated with a brilliant sun through a transparent sky. During the short season of repose from storms, the sun pours down its intense rays upon those snows and prominent glaciers, reducing them to water, which on its passage downward, especially in the hottest of the summer season, frequently deluges the whole base of the mountain, overturning and submerging to a considerable depth beneath rocks and sand bars, many of the most lofty and gigantic trees growing at the base and along the valley below.
On ascending this mountain, as the traveler arrives at the line of perpetual frost, he sees no verdure of any kind. Animals can only live to skirt across some of its lowest glaciers to other mountains more friendly to contribute to their support. Still advancing upward, the glaciers become more steep, till they with the walls of precipitous rocks, bid entire defiance to an ascension to the top of this interesting mountain.
In some of the lowest glaciers of Mount Hood are glacial caverns, several hundred feet deep, coverd from sight with sometimes only a thin covering of ice, with scarcely sufficient strength to sustain the weight of a man.