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.
Mount Hood is a sample of the immense disintegrating power of glacio-aqueous agency. It cannot be expected that otherwise than great disintegrating power should exist where there are constant alternations of frost and water upon rock, as is the case upon Mount Hood. From this mountain flow several important streams of water, all of which, I believe, are constantly filled with a thick sediment of disintegrated rock.
Mount Hood on the east furnishes a considerable arm of Deshutes river. On the west, a large stream calld Sandy creek, and a part of Clackamas. Sandy, after a few miles of westerly course, runs north and falls into the Columbia river, a little below the Cascade falls. Another important stream calld Dog river, flows to the north and empties into the Columbia river above the Cascade falls. In fine, Mount Hood sits as queen of mountains within its vicinity, and being located centrally within that vast range of mountains, and elevated so much above all others as it is, must necessarily distribute its waters on all sides, breaking their way and bursting their barriers through other mountains of inferior size, till they are finally discharged into the ocean.
Mount Jefferson, another glacial peak, is situated centrally in the Cascade range of mountains, about 50 miles nearly south of Mount Hood, and about 40 miles east of the Willamet river. This glacier, as well as Mount Hood, contributes to the waters of Deshutes on the east, and the Willamet on the west. Its character is similar in most respects to Mount Hood, though somewhat inferior in size.