On October 20, 1792, Lieutenant Broughton, of Vancouver's exploring expedition in quest of new territories for His Majesty George III., discovered from the Columbia near the mouth of the Willamette, "a very distant high snowy mountain, rising beautifully conspicuous," which he strangely mistook to be the source of the great river. Forthwith he named it in honor of Rear Admiral Samuel Hood, of the British Admiralty who had distinguished himself in divers naval battles during the American and French Revolutions. [Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER Mount Hood, with Crevasses of Eliot Glacier in foreground. "Evermore the wind Is thy august companion; yea, thy peers Are cloud and thunder, and the face sublime Of the blue mid-heaven."--Henry Clarence Kendall.] The mountain has been climbed more often than any other American snow-peak. The first ascent was made on August 4, 1854, from the south side, by a party under Captain Barlow, builder of the "immigrant road." One of the climbers, Editor Dryer of _The Oregonian_, published an account of the trip in which, with more exactness than accuracy, he placed the height of the mountain at 18,361 feet! The most notable ascent by a large party took place forty years later, when nearly two hundred men and women met on the summit, and there, with parliamentary dispatch bred of a bitter wind, organized a mountain club which has since become famous. For its title they took the name "mazama," Mexican for the mountain goat, close kin to the Alpine chamois. Membership was opened to those who have scaled a snow-peak on foot. By their publications and their annual climbs, the Mazamas have done more than any other agency to promote interest in our Northwestern mountains. [Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER Crevasses and Ice Pinnacles on Eliot Glacier, Mount Hood.] [Illustration: Mount Hood, seen from the top of Barrett Spur. On the left, cascading down from the summit, is Coe glacier; on the right, Ladd glacier. The high cliff separating them is "Pulpit Rock."] [Illustration: Ice Cascade, south side of Mount Hood, near head of White River glacier.] Mount Hood stands, as I have said, upon the summit of the Cascades. The broad and comparatively level back of the range is here about four thousand feet above the sea. Upon this plane the volcano erected its cone, chiefly by the expulsion of scoriæ rather than by extensive lava flows, to a farther height of nearly a mile and a half. There is no reason to suppose that it ever greatly exceeded its present altitude, which government observations have fixed at 11,225 feet. Its diameter at its base is approximately seven miles from east to west. [Illustration: Little Sandy or Reid glacier, west side of Mount Hood.]