SHASTA RAJMBLES 



rived from the melting ice and snow of Shasta 

 flows down its flanks on the surface. Probably 

 ninetj'-nine per cent of it is at once absorbed 

 and drained away beneath the porous lava-folds 

 of the mountain to gush forth, filtered and pure, 

 in the form of immense springs, so large, some 

 of them, that they give birth to rivers that 

 start on their journey beneath the sun, full- 

 grown and perfect without any childhood. 

 Thus the Shasta River issues from a large lake- 

 like spring in Shasta Valley, and about two 

 thirds of the volume of the McCloud gushes 

 forth in a grand spring on the east side of the 

 mountain, a few miles back from its immediate 

 base. 



To find the big spring of the McCloud, or 

 ''Mud Glacier," which you will know by its 

 size (it being the largest on the east side), 

 you make your way through sunny, parkhke 

 woods of yellow pine, and a shaggy growth of 

 chaparral, and come in a few hours to the 

 river flowing in a gorge of moderate depth, cut 

 abruptly down into the lava plain. Should the 

 volume of the stream where you strike it seem 

 small, then you will know that you are above 

 the spring; if large, nearly equal to its volimie at 

 its confluence with the Pitt River, then you are 

 below it; and in either case have only to follow 

 the river up or down until you come to it. 



99 



