THE SIEREA NEVADA 11 



The Cinder Cone near marks the most recent vol 

 canic eruption in the Sierra. It is a symmetrical 

 truncated cone about 700 feet high, covered with 

 gray cinders and ashes, and has a regular unchanged 

 crater on its summit, in which a few small Two- 

 leaved Pines are growing. These show that the age 

 of the cone is not less than eighty years. It stands 

 between two lakes, which a short time ago were 

 one. Before the cone was built, a flood of rough 

 vesicular lava was poured into the lake, cutting it 

 in two, and, overflowing its banks, the fiery flood 

 advanced into the pine-woods, overwhelming the 

 trees in its way, the charred ends of some of which 

 may still be seen projecting from beneath the snout 

 of the lava-stream where it came to rest. Later 

 still there was an eruption of ashes and loose ob 

 sidian cinders, probably from the same vent, which, 

 besides forming the Cinder Cone, scattered a heavy 

 shower over the surrounding woods for miles to a 

 depth of from six inches to several feet. 



The history of this last Sierra eruption is also pre 

 served in the traditions of the Pitt Eiver Indians. 

 They tell of a fearful time of darkness, when the sky 

 was black with ashes and smoke that threatened 

 every living thing with death, and that when at 

 length the sun appeared once more it was red like 

 blood. 



Less recent craters in great numbers roughen the 

 adjacent region ; some of them with lakes in their 

 throats, others overgrown with trees and flowers, 

 Nature in these old hearths and firesides having 

 literally given beauty for ashes. On the northwest 

 side of Mount Shasta there is a subordinate cone 



