238 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



May 



mountain which once rose on the site 

 of the lake after their organization. 

 In many ways the mountain, no longer 

 in existence as such, is worthy of 

 greater consideration than the lake 

 itself, and Mount Mazama, whose name 

 appears in no atlas, has been provocative 

 of widespread scientific interest and 

 discussion. 



Crater Lake has long been an object 

 of interest to the Mazamas, who in 1896 

 explored the whole area now included 

 in the Park, an area remarkable for a 

 score of wonders even without the lake 

 which gives the name and crowning 

 feature. Union Peak and Mount Thiel- 

 sen, culminating volcanic points of the 

 Cascade Range, are remarkable them- 

 selves ; there are wonderful canyons 

 through beds of brilliantly colored 

 lavas, creeks and cascades of great 

 beauty, vast timber belts, and plateaus 

 and valleys containing grassy meadows 

 of a greenness almost unimaginable. 

 In the midst of these wonders, like a 

 jewel of great price, is set the sapphire 

 clearness of the lake, a gem in its per- 

 fection. 



Yet it must not be supposed that the 

 lake is small. It is apt to appear so 

 from the bigness of its surroundings, 

 but in reality it has a surface of more 

 than 20 square miles, being roughly 

 circular ; its widest diameter is 6^ miles 

 and the narrowest about 4^. This 

 shows it to be larger than any of the 

 Saranac Lakes, in the Adirondacks, or 

 Lake Drumniond of the Dismal Swamp, 

 in Virginia. Its wonderful character- 

 istics are its precipitous sides, rising in 

 sheer cliffs in most places from i , 200 to 

 2,000 feet from the surface of the water, 

 though at some points the slopes are 

 less abrupt. Yet at no point will a 

 stone started at the top of the rim be 

 apt to stop before it plunges into the 

 water below, carrying with it a minia- 

 ture landslide from the talus slopes. 

 Near the west shore of Wizard Island a 

 volcanic cone rises 845 feet above the 

 surface of the water and contains a well- 

 defined crater 250 feet in diameter and 

 80 feet deep. 



The walls of the lake are as precipi- 

 tous below the water line as above, and 

 descend to a depth of at least 2,000 feet, 



proving it the deepest fresh water on 

 the Western Hemisphere. Where all 

 the water comes from is a mystery. The 

 precipitation and the streams from melt- 

 ing snow which empty into it from the 

 very limited drainage area cannot ac- 

 count for so much water, and the tem- 

 perature records seem to prove that there 

 is no subterranean inflow. There is a 

 fluctuation of about four feet between 

 the recorded high and low water marks 

 of the lake, the rising of the water being 

 in some measure affected by the banks 

 of snow which drift over the precipitous 

 rim in the winter. Most of the lower- 

 ing of the water level can be accounted 

 for by evaporation, but a certain amount 

 must escape by percolation, though it 

 must be at some distance and through 

 tortuous channels, as there is no water 

 in the immediate vicinity which issues 

 from the ground with greater force than 

 that of an ordinary spring. A direct 

 outlet would jet forth with considerable 

 violence from the great pressure. The 

 animal life of the lake is represented by 

 minute crustaceans, the most numerous 

 of which is Daphnia pulex pulicaria. 

 There are a few trout artificially intro- 

 duced from Klamath Lake. 



Mere words of description are, how- 

 ever, cold and inadequate. The lake 

 has a beauty and grandeur all its own, 

 inspiring an enchanting spell of wonder, 

 which to be realized can only come from 

 a visit to its borders and long looks over 

 its clear blue waters. The shores are 

 most brilliantly colored lavas, slags, arid 

 tuffs, their many hues glorified and 

 magnified in long kaleidoscopic reflec- 

 tions on the rippling surface of the lake. 



But marvelous as the lake itself is, 

 there is another and perhaps greater 

 feeling of wonder when the imagination 

 contemplates the changes which must 

 have taken place in the past to produce 

 the spectacle of the present. Mount 

 Mazama, although existing only as a 

 name today, was at one period a peak 

 which outrivaled any others of the Cas- 

 cade range. Its history is not a matter 

 of conjecture, but one which has been 

 read with painstaking care by govern- 

 ment scientists from the unmistakable 

 geologic evidences everywhere present. 

 From a short distance away the mountain 



