The longer I stayed among the Alps, the more I was struck by their being a vast plateau, upon which nearly all the highest peaks stood like children set upon a table, removed far back from the edge, as if for fear of their falling. The most majestic scenes are produced by one of the great peaks having apparently walked to the edge of the table to look over, and thus showing itself suddenly above the valley in its full height. But the raised table is always intelligibly in existence, even in these exceptional cases; and for the most part, the great peaks are not allowed to come to the edge of it, but remain far withdrawn, surrounded by comparatively level fields of mountain, over which the lapping sheets of glacier writhe and flow. The result is the division of Switzerland into an upper and lower mountain world; the lower world consisting of rich valleys, the upper world, reached after the first steep banks of 3,000 to 4,000 feet have been surmounted, consisting of comparatively level but most desolate tracts, half covered by glacier, and stretching to the feet of the true pinnacles of the chain. [Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER Portland's White Sentinel, Mount Hood. Telephoto view from City Park, showing a portion of the city, with modern buildings and smoke of factories.] [Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER Ice cascade on Eliot glacier, Mount Hood.] Nothing of this in the Cascades! Instead, we have fold upon fold of the earth-crust, separated by valleys of great depth. The ranges rise from levels but little above the sea. For example, between Portland and Umatilla, although they are separated by the mountains of greatest actual elevation in the United States, there is a difference of less than two hundred and fifty feet, Umatilla, east of the Cascades, being only two hundred and ninety-four feet above tide. Trout Lake, lying below Mount Adams, at the head of one of the great intermountain valleys, has an elevation of less than two thousand feet. [Illustration: Portland Snow-shoe Club members on Eliot glacier in winter.] Thus, instead of the Northwestern snow-peaks being set far back upon a general upland and hidden away behind lesser mountains, to be seen only after one has reached the plateau, thousands of feet above sea level, they actually rise either from comparatively low peneplanes on one side of the Cascades, as in the case of St. Helens, or from the summit of one of the narrow, lofty ridges, as do Hood and Adams. But in either case, the full elevation is seen near at hand and from many directions--an elevation, therefore, greater and more impressive than that of most of the celebrated Alpine summits. [Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER Snow-bridge over great crevasse, near head of Eliot glacier.] [Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER