90 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



miles from the summit there is a bench of trap-rock : seven 

 miles farther is a second bench, of red cement or l:iva; thiee 

 miles farther is a third bench, of black lava and obsidian. 

 Near the second bench there are several lakes in cavities wnicn 

 were once probably craters. One of them certainly was once 

 the vent of volcanic action. On the extreme summit of tlie 

 mountain are a number of basaltic columns, looking like chim- 

 neys. The scenery is very grand ; for, as the peak is fourteen 

 thousand four hundred feet high, and towers far above all the 

 mountains around it, the view has no limit in any direction 

 save a very remote horizon. The Klamath, Trinity, Scott, 

 Rogue, Pit, and Sacramento valleys are all visible, besides 

 Lassen's Peak, the Downieville Buttes, the Marysville Buttes, 

 the Three Sisters in Oregon, and so on. About a hundred 

 yards w^est of the summit there are a dozen steaming-hot sul- 

 phur springs, and the earth about them is so hot as to be un- 

 pleasant. The air is so rare at the summit of Mount Shasta, 

 that some persons ascending it have been troubled while there 

 with dizziness, headache, spitting of blood, and difficulty of 

 breathing. 



