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 lava; three 
miles farther is a third bench, of black lava and obsidian. 
Near the second bench there are several lakes in cavities which 
were once probably craters. One of them certainly was once 
the vent of volcanic action. On the extreme summit of the 
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 west 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. 
