Mr. Tliiirston''s Account. 



187 



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risen some 200 feet in nineteen months. In Jul}' Mr. Thurston and party saw the 

 remarkable changes that he reports as follows : 



Upon arriving at the volcano on July 5, 1894, the principal change since Mr. Dodge's visit 

 was found to be the sudden rising of the north bank of the lake, covering an area of about 800 feet 

 long by 400 wide, which, on the 21st of March last was suddenly and without warning elevated to a 

 height of eighty feet above the other banks and the surface of the lake, the lake being then full. 

 The raised area was much shattered. Two blowholes shortly afterwards made their appearance on 

 the outer line of fracture. April i8th, the hill thus formed began to sink, and on July 5th, was only 



about thirt)' feet above the other walls of the lake. 



On the evening of July 6th, a party of tourists 



. found the lake in a state of moderate activitv, 



the surface of the lava being about twelve feet 

 below the banks. 



On Saturday, the 7th, the surface was rai.sed 

 so that the entire lake was visible from the \^olcano 

 House. That night it overflowed into the main 

 crater, and a blow-hole was thrown up, some 200 

 yards outside and to the north of the lake, from 

 which a flow issued. There were two other hot 

 cones in the immediate vicinity which were thrown 

 up about three weeks before. On Sunday, Monday 

 and Tuesday following, the surface of the lake rose 

 and fell several times, varying from full to the brim 

 to fifteen feet below the edge of the banks. 



On the morning of the nth, the hill was found 

 to have sunk down to the level of the other banks, 

 and frequent columns of rising dust indicated that 

 the banks were falling in. At 9:45 p.m., at which 

 hour a party reached the lake, a red-hot crack 

 from three to six feet wide was found surrounding 

 the space recently occupied by the hill ; the hill 

 was nearly level ; the lake had fallen some fifty 

 feet, and the wall of the lake formed by the hill 

 was falling in at intervals. 

 The lava in the lake continued to fall steadily, at the rate of about twenty feet an hour from 

 ten o'clock in the morning until eight in the evening. At eleven a.m the area formerly occupied by 

 the hill, began to sink bodily, leaving a clean line of fracture ; the line of this area was continually 

 leaning over and falling into the lake. From about noon until eight in the evening there was scarcely 

 a moment when the crash of the falling banks was not going on. As the level of the lake sank the 

 greater height of the banks caused a constantly increasing commotion in the lake as the banks struck 

 the molten lava in their fall. A number of times a section of the bank from 200 to 500 feet long, 

 150 to 200 feet high, and twenty to thirty feet thick would split off from the adjoining rocks, and 

 with a tremendous roar, amid a blinding cloud of steam, smoke and dust, fall with an appalling 

 down-plunge into the boiling lake, causing great waves and breakers of fire to dash into the air, and 

 a mighty "ground swell" to sweep across the lake dashing against the opposite cliffs like storm 

 waves upon a lee shore. Most of the falling rocks were immediately swallowed up by the lake, but 

 when one of the great downfalls referred to occurred, it would not immediately sink, but would float 

 off across the lake, a great floating island of rock. At about three o'clock an island of this character 



C565I 



Pig. 116. SECTION OF h.\lem.\u.m.\u, jri.v 11-12, 1894. 



