Mount St. Helens

“ The old volcanoes glistened, for a wintry crust was widening over their long-dead ovens. Mount Saint Helens, as the far range which led up to the relic of the ancient lava-floods that is now known by that name was called by the settlers, was wonderfully beautiful in the twilights of the sun and moon. Mount Hood was a celestial glory, and the shadows of the year softened the glimmering glories of the Columbia. ”

“ At the forest service camp is a junction with a dirt road; R. here 1.5 m. to the timber line of MOUNT ST. HELENS (9,671 alt.) , which is as far as a car can go. A trail leads off at this point. The climbing time from here to the summit is seven hours. It is said that the steep north side of the mountain, with its yawning glaciers, is one of the most difficult ascents in the Cascades. CASTLE ROCK, 22.7 m. (52 alt., 1,182 pop.) , a rural trading center for the fine farms in the valley, is set on low flat ground along the east bank of the Cowlitz River. ”

“ THE scene of this little book is on a high mountain. There are, indeed, many higher; there are many of a nobler outline. It is no place of pilgrimage for the summary globe-trotter; but to one who lives upon its sides, Mount Saint Helena soon becomes a centre of interest. It is the Mont Blanc of one section of the Californian Coast Range, none of its near neighbours rising to one-half its altitude. It looks down on much green, intricate country. It feeds in the spring-time many splashing brooks. ”

“ The whole neighbourhood of Mount Saint Helena is (182) full of sulphur and of boiling springs. The Geysers are famous; they were the great health resort of the Indians before the coming of the whites. Lake County is dotted with spas; Hot Springs and White Sulphur Springs are the names of two stations on the Napa Valley Railroad; and Calistoga itself seems to repose on a mere film above a boiling, subterranean lake. At one end of the hotel enclosure are the springs from which it takes its name, hot enough to scald a child seriously while I was there. ”

“ I have eight prisoners on hand at present, for various crimes, principally stealing horses, grain, etc.; and crimes are multiplying with numbers among the whites, and with scarcity of game among the Indians.
No intelligence from abroad has reached us this winter. Mount St. Helen, one of these snow-capped volcanic mountains, some 16,000 feet above the level of the sea, and eighty miles northwest of Vancouver, broke out upon the 20th of November last, presenting a scene the most awful and sublime imaginable, scattering smoke and ashes several hundred miles distance. ”

“ There are many Helens, and readers will see the one who sat by the fire that winter’s night in the fated city, but each looks upon his own Helen and the fire glows upon his own hearthstone. One looks at her and she at the fire, and the light falling over her is bathing her beautiful face till every feature is radiant with its divine glow, and the most fascinating tints seem to tinge each ringlet of her hair, and to sleep and dream in those dark, brown eyes. ”

“ They took the road to Jericho, which leads over the mount of Olives. They had before them a journey of one hundred and fifty stadia, or about twenty-four sabbath-days’ journies. Passing the dry bed of the brook Kedron, they walked under the shade of the cedars, till the road wound up the side of the mount and led them through rows of olive-trees over the easternmost of the three summits. It is loftier than any of the hills on which the city stands. As they ascended it, Helon cast back a look of gratitude and regret on the sacred spot, where God had shown him so much good. ”

“ Helena with a view to testing its astronomical capabilities, and a site already secured in the Sierra Nevada was abandoned on the ground of climatic disqualifications. Finally, one of the culminating peaks of the Coast Range, elevated 4,440 feet above the sea, was fixed upon. Situated about fifty miles south-east of San Francisco, Mount Hamilton lies far enough inland to escape the sea-fog, which only on the rarest occasions drifts upward to its triple crest. All through the summer the sky above it is limpid and cloudless ”

“ Helen’s. Fortunately he did, perhaps imagining it for a new entrance to his stable, and Virginia disappeared from sight among the pines.
“Some rods ahead, Virginia espied a lone figure in agray shawl.”
It is safe to say that Miss Harriet Green never before ascended the hill leading to St. Helen’s in such a short space of time. When she arrived, quite out of breath, at The Hermitage, Priscilla was just preparing to mount the black steed, before the eyes of an interested audience. She waved her hand as a signal for operations to cease until she might find breath to speak. ”

“ Carmel joins the plain of Sharon to the south, and the hills of Ephraim to the south-east; and on the north the bay of Acco and the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, through which the Kishon runs, rising in mount Tabor, and falling into the sea at the foot of Carmel, after having divided the lands of Issachar and Zebulon. Helon ascended the mountain; it is of great height, and has a wide and beautiful prospect both by land and sea. It is distinguished, as its name expresses, by its fertility. Its very summit is crowned with pines and oaks ”

“ This is the only peak you can see from Vancouver, as the view is obscured by the tall fir timber. At the mouth of the Wallamette, as you enter the Columbia, you have a view of both Mount Hood and Mount St. Helena. From Linnton you have a very fair and full view of Mount St. Helena, about fifty miles distant; but it looks as if it was within reach. This peak is very smooth, and in the form of a regular cone, and nearly, if not quite, as tall as Mount Hood, and also covered with perpetual snow. This mountain is now a burning volcano. ”

“ We were quite tempted to go and hear what the service would be, but the sound of the breakers on the bar enchained us to stop and listen to them.
Portland, Ore., October 20, 1868.
In coming up the river from Astoria, we had always in view the snow-white cone of St. Helen's, one of the principal peaks of the Cascade Range. Nothing can be conceived more virginal than this form of exquisite purity rising from the dark fir forests to the serene sky. Mount Baker's symmetry is much marred by135 the sunken crater at the summit ”

“ Mount Pennell is nearly as smooth as Mount Ellen. Mount Ellsworth is nearly as rugged as Mount Holmes. One may ride to the crest of Mount Ellen and to the summit of Mount Pennell; he may lead his sure-footed cayuse to the top of Mount Hillers; but Mounts Ellsworth and Holmes are not to be scaled by horses. The mountaineer must climb to reach their summits, and for part of the way use hands as well as feet.
In a word, the ruggedness of the summits or the differentiation of hard and soft by sculpture, is proportioned inversely to the altitude. ”

“ This circumstance, and the fact that it is the nearest point in the mining region to the head of navigation on the Missouri river at Fort Benton, gave Helena a great start in earlier days, and it is certainly likely to maintain its position as the chief commercial town of Montana territory. It is surrounded by mountains, rising one above the other, till the more distant are lost in the clouds, forming a view of striking beauty and grandeur.
The town itself, so far as we had time to observe, is not well built; the streets are narrow, crooked, and steep ”

“ The forest grew more level and denser. Shadows of twilight or gloom lay under the trees. Presently Dale and Roy, disappeared, going downhill, and likewise Bo. Then Helen's ears suddenly filled with a roar of rapid water. Ranger trotted faster. Soon Helen came to the edge of a great valley, black and gray, so full of obscurity that she could not see across or down into it. But she knew there was a rushing river at the bottom. The sound was deep, continuous, a heavy, murmuring roar, singularly musical. The trail was steep. Helen had not lost all feeling, as she had believed and hoped. ”

“ If we climb, we shall find purer air and fairer regions. Heaven will be nearer to us, the world will lie beneath our feet;—we shall bless God for the trial that has lifted us so high above our old selves. We shall comprehend a little of the vast Love that reared the mountain;—ay, we shall break forth into singing, “Thou, Lord, of Thy goodness, hast made my hill so strong!”
It was clear that Helen would never climb her mountain. In the old days, although she was three years older than her cousin, Rhoda [20] had found out that nothing would ever lift her above the dead level of life. ”

“ Beyond is Helena, the capital of Montana, built in the Prickly Pear Valley near the eastern base of the main Rocky Mountain range and having fifteen thousand population. This is in another rich mining district, and the "Last Chance Gulch," running through the city, has yielded over $30,000,000 gold, while all around are gold, silver, copper and lead-deposits. Twenty-four miles from Helena, the main range of the Rockies is crossed by the Mullen's Pass tunnel at fifty-five hundred and fifty feet elevation. ”

“ It is time. I wait.
[The storm drops suddenly. In the hush the fire grows brighter, and the figure of Helen suddenly becomes a glow of light.]
Fritz
Look! Lo! She moves—her hands are raised—she speaks.
Helen
Yea, I am she whom men call Helen, maid
Of Troy. Long years the beauty Paris loved
Has been a stir of corn-flowers by that sea
Where memory is a tide and summers fade
Into the past like shadows.
Faustus
⁠'Tis a trick!
A dream! A phantasy! The dead are dead.
These are no words! A shadow—
Helen
⁠I am she
Whose flesh is dust, whose flesh can never die ”

“ Helen had followed this trail for two reasons. In the first place, she wanted to be alone. Then, this was the trail over which she had ridden with Ralph when he had first shown her his work. The head of the arroyo was clad with a thicket of cedars, so dense as to be almost impenetrable. As the last foot-fall sounded on the bridge, Helen's pony halted abruptly, and with swelling nostrils and forward pointing ears, whinnied a short, sharp challenge. There was an answering whinny, and Helen's eyes followed the direction of the sound. ”

“ The air grew chillier and chillier; Helen started off on a brisk canter to warm us up. Along a soft dirt road we went at a good clip, Leonidas trailing desperately in the rear. We were on the crest of a hill overlooking distant Deep Harbor and the lake. The soft coal smoke lay black over the town, blending with the lighter greys of the water and sky. All outlines were blurred and softened in the half light, and Deep Harbor might have been a city of dreams. Ahead of me, Helen must have been thinking something the same, for she pointed toward it with a sweeping gesture of her arm. ”

“ Meantime the night had deepened; there was no moon; the taller shrubs, aspiring to tree proportions, made a tangle of shadow.
'He has probably gone off to picket his horse,' said Helen's father.
'Nothing could be more natural.'
Helen, more matter-of-fact and less given to theorizing, looked about her curiously. She found a tin cup; there was no bed, no pack, no other sign to tell who their neighbour might be. Close by the spot where she had set down the frying-pan she noted a second spring. Through an open space in the stunted desert growth the trail came in from the north. ”

“ Helens was appointed to the ambassadorship at the Hague (25 March 1794) , where he remained until the French conquered the country, when the danger of his situation caused much anxiety to his friends. A year or two later a great misfortune happened to him. On 16 July 1797 his house, containing everything he possessed, was burnt to the ground, and he himself narrowly escaped a premature death. 'He has lost,' wrote Lord Minto, 'every scrap of paper he ever had. Conceive how inconsolable that loss must be to one who has lived his life. ”

“ Helena, by the percolation of water through finely comminuted shells: for when sand is blown on a much-exposed coast, it always tends to accumulate on broad, even surfaces, which offer a uniform resistance to the winds. At the neighbouring island, moreover, of Feurteventura, there is an earthy limestone, which, according to Von Buch, is quite similar to specimens which he has seen from St. Helena, and which he believes to have been formed by the drifting of shelly detritus. ”

“ After a walk of about nine miles, during which we frequently met with a good soil; we twice crossed what we supposed to be the Helena, but which here was only a chain of pools unconnected by any stream, the bed lying S. and S.E. through a valley of three quarters of a mile in length and half a mile in breadth, and having also passed several dry beds of streams, we ascended a hill shaped like the one for which we had been steering, and had a view to the E. for ten miles, bounded by high hills ”

“ Through the thin wall of leaves they caught glimpses of the broad river, the yellow waves of which gave back the color of the sky in flashes of metallic blue. And suddenly, stepping out of the perfumed shadow, they saw the orchards. A sea of petals, fragile, translucent, unearthly as waves of pure rosy light, rippled at their feet.
The loveliness of it filled Helen's eyes with tears. "Oh!" she said, softly. "Oh—Paul!" Her hand went out blindly toward him. One more breath of magic would make the moment perfect. She did not know what she wanted, but her whole being was a longing for it. ”