Identifier: topofcontinentst00yard (find matches)
Title: The top of the continent; the story of a cheerful journey through our national parks
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: Yard, Robert Sterling, 1861-1945
Subjects: National parks and reserves
Publisher: New York, Chicago (etc.) C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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ll of these many volcanoes did not continue tolive. Most of the babies died in childhood and wereburied under the growing slopes of their biggerbrothers and the immense masses of ash which thewind deposited in the hollows. As the smaller volcanoes choked up and disappearedbelow the growing surface, the lava which had beenfinding vent through them sought other doors of es-cape, and found them in the volcanoes of larger vent.This, of course, made the larger volcanoes grow allthe faster. It was an example of the survival of the fittest,which is one of the first laws of nature. Those chil-dren who study the hardest become more and moreable to study, and inevitably near the top of theclass—another example of the survival of the fittest. The baby volcano which is the hero of our story wasone of the fittest of its own great family; it becameone of the survivors. It grew enormously, climbingalways above the range as the range itself climbedhigher. It was an ambitious volcano. When the grow-
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144 THE TOP OF THE CONTINENT ing mountain range had swallowed most of the othersand perhaps was approaching its own greatest size,this was among the very biggest of the fifteen or twentypeaks which continued to spout fire and float densevolumes of smoke hundreds of miles to sea upon theeast wind. How many centuries these monsters lit the Pacificnights with their lurid torches no man can guess. Oneof them, now called Mount Rainier, lost two thousandfeet of its summit in one mighty explosion; but it stillremained fourteen thousand feet high. Most of theothers suffered similar accidents, but still remainedmajestic mountains, and remain so to this day. Onlyone of them was totally destroyed, and that one is thehero of this amazing history. Though no man eversaw this great peak, which once may have toweredeven above Mount Rainier, it bears a name. ButMount Mazama was not named until centuries afterit had ceased to exist. Other volcanoes have died the remarkable death ofMount Mazama, but non

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