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, bossy walls stretching along the horizon and making a magnificent
display of their white wealth. 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.
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