The Coast Range In Oregon Does Not
Perhaps Average More Than Three Thousand Feet In Height.
Its snow
does not last long, most of its soil is fertile all the way to the
summits, and the greater part of the range may at some time be brought
under cultivation.
The immense deposits on the great central uplift
of the Cascade Range are mostly melted off before the middle of summer
by the comparatively warm winds and rains from the coast, leaving only
a few white spots on the highest ridges, where the depth from drifting
has been greatest, or where the rate of waste has been diminished by
specially favorable conditions as to exposure. Only the great
volcanic cones are truly snow-clad all the year, and these are not
numerous and make but a small portion of the general landscape.
As we approach Oregon from the coast in summer, no hint of snowy
mountains can be seen, and it is only after we have sailed into the
country by the Columbia, or climbed some one of the commanding
summits, that the great white peaks send us greeting and make telling
advertisements of themselves and of the country over which they rule.
So, also, in coming to Oregon from the east the country by no means
impresses one as being surpassingly mountainous, the abode of peaks
and glaciers. Descending the spurs of the Rocky Mountains into the
basin of the Columbia, we see hot, hundred-mile plains, roughened here
the there by hills and ridges that look hazy and blue in the distance,
until we have pushed well to the westward.
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