Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling has been maintained.

THE MOUNTAIN
THAT WAS "GOD"

BEING A LITTLE BOOK ABOUT THE GREAT
PEAK WHICH THE INDIANS NAMED "TACOMA"
BUT WHICH IS OFFICIALLY CALLED "RAINIER"

By JOHN H. WILLIAMS

O, rarest miracle of mountain heights,
Thou hast the sky for thy imperial dome,
And dwell'st among the stars all days and nights,
In the far heavens familiarly at home.

—William Hillis Wynn: "Mt. Tacoma; an Apotheosis."

Second Edition revised and greatly enlarged, with 190 illustrations, including eight colored halftones.

TACOMA: JOHN H. WILLIAMS
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS: LONDON
1911

Great Crevasses in the upper part of Cowlitz Glacier.

Great Crevasses in the upper part of Cowlitz Glacier.
Copyright, 1905, By Kiser Photo Co.

On the summit of Eagle Rock in winter.

On the summit of Eagle Rock in winter.
Boys looking over an 800-foot precipice.

FOREWORD.

Every summer there is demand for illustrated literature describing the mountain variously called "Rainier" or "Tacoma." Hitherto, we have had only small collections of pictures, without text, and confined to the familiar south and southwest sides.

The little book which I now offer aims to show the grandest and most accessible of our extinct volcanoes from all points of view. Like the glacial rivers, its text will be found a narrow stream flowing swiftly amidst great mountain scenery. Its abundant illustrations cover not only the giants' fairyland south of the peak, but also the equally stupendous scenes that await the adventurer who penetrates the harder trails and climbs the greater glaciers of the north and east slopes. * * * *

The title adopted for the book has reference, of course, to the Indian nature worship, of which something is said in the opening chapter. Both the title and a small part of the matter are reprinted from an article which I contributed last year to the New York Evening Post. Attention is called to the tangle in the names of glaciers and the need of a definitive nomenclature. As to the name of the Mountain itself, that famous bone of contention between two cities, I greatly prefer "Tacoma," one of the several authentic forms of the Indian name used by different tribes; but I believe that "Tahoma," proposed by the Rotary Club of Seattle, would be a justifiable compromise, and satisfy nearly everybody. Its adoption would free our national map from one more of its meaningless names—the name, in this case, of an undistinguished foreign naval officer whose only connection with our history is the fact that he fought against us during the American Revolution. Incidentally, it would also free me from the need of an apology for using the hybrid "Rainier-Tacoma"! * * * Many of the illustrations show wide reaches of wonderful country, and their details may well be studied with a reading glass.

I am much indebted to the librarians and their courteous assistants at the Seattle and Tacoma public libraries; also to Prof. Flett for his interesting account of the flora of the National Park; to Mr. Eugene Ricksecker, of the United States Engineer Corps, for permission to reproduce his new map of the Park, now printed for the first time; and, most of all, to the photographers, both professional and amateur. In the table of illustrations, credit is given the maker of each photograph. The book is sent out in the hope of promoting a wider knowledge of our country's noblest landmark. May it lead many of its readers to delightful days of recreation and adventure.

Tacoma, June 1, 1910.J. H. W.

Second Edition.—The text has been carefully revised, much new matter added, and the information for tourists brought to date. The illustrations have been rearranged, and more than fifty new ones included. Views of the west and south sides, mainly, occupy the first half of the book, while the later pages carry the reader east and north from the Nisqually country.

Nearly five thousand negatives and photographs have now been examined in selecting copy for the engravers. In the table of illustrations I am glad to place the names of several expert photographers in Portland, San Francisco, Pasadena and Boston. Their pictures, with other new ones obtained from photographers already represented, make this edition much more complete. For the convenience of tourists, as well as of persons unable to visit the Mountain but wishing to know its features, I have numbered the landmarks on three of the larger views, giving a key in the underlines. If this somewhat mars the beauty of these pictures, it gives them added value as maps of the areas shown. In renewing my acknowledgments to the photographers, I must mention especially Mr. Asahel Curtis of Seattle. The help and counsel of this intrepid and public-spirited mountaineer have been invaluable. Mr. A. H. Barnes, our Tacoma artist with camera and brush, whose fine pictures fill many of the following pages, is about to publish a book of his mountain views, for which I bespeak liberal patronage.

My readers will join me in welcoming the beautiful verses written for this edition by a gracious and brilliant woman whose poems have delighted two generations of her countrymen.

Thanks are also due to Senator Wesley L. Jones, Superintendent E. S. Hall of the Rainier National Park and the Secretary of the Interior for official information; to Director George Otis Smith of the U. S. Geological Survey for such elevations as have thus far been established by the new survey of the Park; to A. C. McClurg & Co. of Chicago, for permission to quote from Miss Judson's "Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest"; to Mr. Wallace Rice, literary executor of the late Francis Brooks, for leave to use Mr. Brooks's fine poem on the Mountain; to the librarians at the Public Library, the John Crerar Library and the Newberry Library in Chicago, and to many others who have aided me in obtaining photographs or data for this edition.

Lovers of the mountains, in all parts of our country, will learn with regret that Congress, remains apparently indifferent to the conservation of the Rainier National Park and its complete opening to the public. At the last session, a small appropriation was asked for much-needed trails through the forests and to the high interglacial plateaus, now inaccessible save to the toughest mountaineer; it being the plan of the government engineers to build such trails on grades that would permit their ultimate widening into permanent roads. Even this was denied. The Idaho catastrophe last year again proved the necessity of trails to the protection of great forests. With the loggers pushing their operations closer to the Park, its danger calls for prompt action. Further, American tourists, it is said, annually spend $200,000,000 abroad, largely to view scenery surpassed in their own country. But Congress refuses the $50,000 asked, even refuses $25,000, toward making the grandest of our National Parks safe from forest fires and accessible to students and lovers of nature!

May 3, 1911.

Winthrop Glacier and Saint Elmo Pass.

Winthrop Glacier and St. Elmo Pass,
with Ruth Mountain (the Wedge) on right and Sour-Dough Mountains on left.

White Glacier and Little Tahoma.

White Glacier and Little Tahoma,
with eastern end of the Tatoosh Range in distance.