Glimpses of our national parks . und, a perfect flower elysium. VITHE CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK Special Characteristic: Lake of Great Depth Filling- Collapsed Volcanic Crater IN the heart of the Cascade Mountains of our Northwest, whosevolcanoes were in constant eruption in the ages before history,and now, extinct and ice-plated, shine like huge diamonds in thesunlight, there lies, jewel-like in a setting of lava, a lake of unbe-lievable blue. The visitor who comes suddenly upon it stands silentwith emotion, overcome by its quite extraordinary beauty and by a 28 OUR NATIONAL PARKS. strange sen
Glimpses of our national parks . und, a perfect flower elysium. VITHE CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK Special Characteristic: Lake of Great Depth Filling- Collapsed Volcanic Crater IN the heart of the Cascade Mountains of our Northwest, whosevolcanoes were in constant eruption in the ages before history,and now, extinct and ice-plated, shine like huge diamonds in thesunlight, there lies, jewel-like in a setting of lava, a lake of unbe-lievable blue. The visitor who comes suddenly upon it stands silentwith emotion, overcome by its quite extraordinary beauty and by a 28 OUR NATIONAL PARKS. strange sense of mystery which even the unimaginative feel keenlyand which increases rather than decreases with familiarity. This is Crater Lake. One of the very largest of these ancient volcanoes was MountMazama. It stood in the southern central part of what is now Oregon,two hundred miles south of Mount Rainier and nearly as lofty. Itwas about the height of Mount Shasta, in plain sight of which itrose nearly a hundred miles to its Photograph by II. T. Cowling Across Crater Lake, Showing Wizard IslandThe high point on the opposite rim of Llao Rock But this was ages ago. No human eyes ever saw Mount before man came, the entire upper part of it in some titaniccataclysm fell in upon itself as if swallowed by a subterranean cavern,leaving its craterlike lava sides cut sharply downwardly into thecentral abyss. What a spectacle that must have been ! The first awful depth of this vast hole no man can guess. But thevolcano was not quenched; it burst up through the collapsed lavasin three places, making lesser cones within the greater, but none quiteso high as the surrounding rim. Then the fires ceased and gradually, as the years passed, springspercolated into the vast basin and filled it with water within a thou-sand feet of its rim. As you see it to-day one of these cones emergesa few hundred feet from the surface. The lake is 2,000 feet deep inplaces. It has no inlet of any
Size: 1915px × 1305px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., book, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherwashingtongpo
