Rainier has a magnificent glacial system. There are a dozen large and twice as many small glaciers. The peak is an enormous cone with a blunt, broken top. A majority of the large glaciers begin two thousand or more feet below the summit and extend in a comparatively straight line toward the bottom. Though a number unite in continuous ice-fields well up the slope, down the slope each generally is separated from its neighbors. The glaciers are separated by narrow ledges called cleavers, or by each occupying its own deep cañon. Near the terminus many are separated by moraines or flowering meadows. The Nisqually Glacier, which ends just below the altitude of four thousand feet in Paradise Park, is five miles long. In the summer-time it moves forward at the rate of about sixteen inches per day. This, and in fact all glaciers, have periods of advance and retreat. During the last twenty-five years this glacier has retreated about one thousand feet. That is to say, the present point where it melts entirely away is one thousand feet farther up the slope than it was twenty-five years ago. In comparatively recent times, as the cirques, lakes, and moraines far down the slopes show, the glaciers on this peak were deeper and larger, and reached much farther down the slope than at present. The Nisqually Glacier has continuous connection with the snow deposits upon the summit of the peak. At one point this snow comes down a precipitous cascade and tumbles perhaps two thousand feet. This and all other glaciers are clean and snowy at the upper end, but the lower end is greatly darkened with rock-débris and earthy material that have mixed with it. The last half-mile of the Nisqually Glacier has the appearance more of a rock glacier than an ice glacier. Its front is a dark chocolate color. The Paradise Glacier is one of several on the southerly slope. It is formed by the union of a number of ice-streams which originate at about nine thousand feet. They do not receive snow from the slopes above, but quantities of snow are brought to them by the wind. Near the lower end, this glacier divides into a number of lobes or streams. The Carbon Glacier descends the northerly slope. It originates in the large cirque or ice-made cañon on the peak. This is a mile and a half across, and its terminal wall rises precipitously thirty-six hundred feet. Its snow supplies fall upon it from the clouds, are swept to it by the winds, and rushed to it by avalanches. The Winthrop Glacier is on the northern slope. Among its interesting features are ice-cascades, glacier tablets, and the ice flowing over high mounds in its main channel. The Tahoma glaciers on the southwest slope exhibit a glacier island. The Kautz Glacier on the southern slope is long, narrow, and winding. It has an enormous medial moraine. Pyramid Rock commands an excellent view of this and other scenes.