These are continued by easy gradations mile after mile all
the way to the truncated, crumbling summit, where they attain a
steepness of twenty to twenty-five degrees. The grand simplicity of
these lines is partially interrupted on the north subordinate cone
that rises from the side of the main cone about three thousand feet
from the summit. This side cone, past which your way to the summit
lies, was active after the breaking-up of the main ice-cap of the
glacial period, as shown by the comparatively unwasted crater in which
it terminates and by streams of fresh-looking, unglaciated lava that
radiate from it as a center.
The main summit is about a mile and a half in diameter from southwest
to northeast, and is nearly covered with snow and neve, bounded by
crumbling peaks and ridges, among which we look in vain for any sure
plan of an ancient crater. The extreme summit is situated on the
southern end of a narrow ridge that bounds the general summit on the
east. Viewed from the north, it appears as an irregular blunt point
about ten feet high, and is fast disappearing before the stormy
atmospheric action to which it is subjected.
At the base of the eastern ridge, just below the extreme summit, hot
sulphurous gases and vapor escape with a hissing, bubbling noise from
a fissure in the lava.
