The climate, tempered by the warm sea, is mild. Probably no other region in the United States has a heavier rainfall and snowfall. From sixty to one hundred feet of snow is deposited over it each winter. The only comparatively rainless months are July and August. The rain, and the water from the ice- and snow-fields, supply numerous steeply inclined streams, which descend in roaring waterfalls and in long, leaping wild cascades. This region excels in the number and crowded conditions of large tree growth, and the impenetrable luxuriance of undergrowth. Hemlock, cedar, spruce, and fir predominate. While the hemlock is the most common tree here, the cedar is the most striking. The latter is a strangely stiff and mysterious tree of rather stocky growth. In this moist, mild clime it finds conditions for development almost ideal. The two kinds of cedar are the Alaska and the red. Thousands of acres here may be seen crowded with tall trees that will average five feet or more in diameter and one hundred and fifty feet in height. Trees twelve feet in diameter are not uncommon, and the United States Geological Survey reports one with a diameter of twenty-eight feet! Thousands of acres of red fir trees may also be found in which the average height of the trees is two hundred and forty feet! Wild flowers are everywhere. They edge the snow-fields, cover the breaks in the cliffs, line the streams, and bank with bloom the fallen forest patriarchs. Among the common blossoms are the lovely cassiope,--white heather,--mountain anemone, phlox, and "Indian basket grass." [Illustration: MOUNT ST. HELENS From the Timber-Line Trail on Mount Rainier] This is the home of the gigantic Olympic Roosevelt elk, and among the other common animals are the bear, deer, wolf, fox, lynx, otter, and beaver. The streams are simply crowded with trout. Bald eagles are found, and there is an array of flickers, woodpeckers, warblers, jays, sparrows, and hummingbirds. The solitudes of this sylvan park are cheered with the melody of the water-ouzel, the Alaska hermit thrush, and the winter wren. But the mountain summits are significant as view-points. From them one commands the sea, islands, and the broken shore of the Pacific. Bright Puget Sound, with a scattering of dark islands and ragged edges, fills the foreground. Looking toward the southeast across the darkly forested mountains through which rolls the Columbia, one enjoys a view vast and imposing. The dark forest cover is pierced by three snow-laden and steaming sleeping volcanoes. The most impressive one of these is Mount Rainier, with a score of enormous glaciers covering head and shoulders. Another one is Mount Adams. But the most exquisitely beautiful of all the peaks which the summits of the Olympics command is Mount St. Helens. The head and shoulders of this mountain rise a perfect snowy cone above the purple forest robe and stand as perfectly poised as a Greek statue of marble.