seen the Yosemite yet. But already, we felt, the Columbia compensated us for all our fatigue and danger, in crossing the Continent; and it is not too much to say, that all true lovers of the sublime and beautiful in nature will yet wonder and worship here. Before reaching the Dalles, and afterwards, we had several superb views of glorious Mt. Hood. All good Oregonians claim Hood is the highest peak in the United States; but Californians boast their Shasta equals, while Whitney out-tops it. A party of savans had recently ascended Hood, and they reported the general range, of which Hood is a part, as 4,400 feet above the sea; above which Hood still shot up 13,000 feet. The summit proved to be crescent-shaped, half a mile long, by from three feet to fifty wide. The north front was a precipice, of naked columnar rock, falling sheer down--perpendicularly--a mile or more at a jump. On the west side was an ancient crater, a thousand feet in depth from which clouds of sulphurous smoke still issued occasionally. On the flanks were true glaciers, with terminal and lateral moraines, the same as among the Alps. Smoke about his summit, just before we reached the Dalles, heralded a smart shock of earthquake there, and no doubt he is the safety-valve of all that region. We had caught a glimpse or two of Mt. Hood in descending the Blue Mountains, and again from Umatilla: but it was only for a moment, and usually with his night-cap on. But in threading the cañon of the Columbia, one morning as we rounded a rocky bastion, suddenly, a hundred miles away, Hood stood before us, a vast pyramidal peak, snow-clad from base to summit, resting in solitary grandeur on a great mountain range--itself black with firs and pines. From the apparent level or slight undulation of the general Cascade Range, Hood quickly shoots up loftily into the sky, individual and alone, and serene and unapproachable dominates the far-stretching landscape. From all points of view, whether descending the Columbia, where the cañon often frames him in like a picture, or at Fort Vancouver, where he stands superb and glorious against the sapphire sky, Hood always gives you the impression of vast loftiness, of serene majesty, of heaven-kissing superiority and power, and Oregonians may well be proud of him. Butman's two pictures of Hood are both good, but neither does justice to his great merits. The White Mountains and the Alleghanies are well enough in their way. The Rocky Mountains are indeed noble and majestic. But once see Hood, and all these pall upon the mind, and he alone rules the memory and imagination afterwards. Up the Columbia and down, off at sea, and pretty much all over Oregon, Hood is a great and magnificent landmark; and, of itself, is well worth a trip across the continent. [Illustration: MOUNT HOOD.]