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PARK AND CEMETERY. 
GLIMPSES OF OUR NATIONAL PARKS 
IV — The Crater Lake National Park. 
MP'AT? PRATER LAKE LODGE. OPPOSITE WIZARD PHANTOM SHIP. CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK. 
ISLAND t'UATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK. 
In the heart of the Cascade Mountains 
of our Northwest, whose volcanoes were 
in constant eruption in the ages before 
history, and now, extinct and ice-plated, 
shine like huge diamonds in the sunlight, 
there lies, jewel-like in a setting of lava, 
a lake of unbelievable blue. The visitor 
who comes suddenly upon it stands silent 
with emotion, overcome by its quite ex- 
traordinary beauty and by a strange sense 
of mystery which even the unimaginative 
feel keenly and which increases rather than 
decreases with familiarity. 
This is Crater Lake. 
One of the very largest of these ancient 
volcanoes was Mount Mazama. It stood 
in the southern central part of what is now 
Oregon, two hundred miles south of Mount 
Rainier and nearly as lofty. It was about 
the height of Blount Shasta, in plain sight 
of w’hich it rose nearly a hundred miles 
to its north. 
But this was ages ago. No human eyes 
ever saw Mount Mazama. Long before 
man came, the entire upper part of -it in 
some titanic cataclysm fell in upon itself 
as if swallowed by a subterranean cavern, 
leaving its crater-like lava sides cut sharply 
downward into the central abyss. 
What a spectacle that must have been ! 
The first awful depth of this vast hole 
no man can guess. But the volcano was 
not quenched ; it burst up through the 
collapsed lavas in three places, making 
lesser cones within the greater, but none 
quite so high as the surrounding rim. 
Then the fires ceased and gradually, as 
the years passed, springs percolated into 
the vast basin and filled it with water 
within a thousand feet of its rim. As you 
see it today one of these cones emerges 
a few hundred feet from the surface. The 
lake is 2,000 feet deep in places. It has 
no inlet of any sort nor is there any stream 
running out of it ; but the water is sup- 
posed to escape by underground channels 
and to reappear in the Klamath River, a 
few miles away. 
The Indians believed that Crater Lake 
was the home of a great spirit whom they 
called Liao. The blue waters teemed with 
giant crawfish, his servants, some of them 
so large that they could reach great claws 
to the top of the cliffs and seize venture- 
some visitors. Another great spirit chief- 
tain, whom they called Skell, was supposed 
to live in the Klamath Marsh near by and 
to have many servants who could take at 
will the forms of eagles and antelopes. 
VIEW OF WIZARD ISLAND FROM 
THE RIM, CRATER LAKE NATIONAL 
PARK. 
War broke out, so the Indian legend 
says, between Liao and Skell and Skell 
was captured. The monsters from the lake 
tore out his heart and played ball with it, 
tossing it back and forth from mountain 
top to mountain top. But it was caught 
in the air by one of Shell’s eagles and by 
him passed to one of Shell’s antelopes, and 
by him passed to others who finally es- 
caped with it. 
Shell's body miraculously grew again 
around his heart and, in time, he captured 
Liao, and tore his body into fragments 
which he tossed into the lake. 
But finally Liao had his revenge. His 
monsters seized the brave who first ven- 
tured, bore him to the highest part of the 
rim and tore his body into small pieces. 
The spot where this was done is today 
called Liao Rock. 
Crater Lake is one of the most beautiful 
spots in America. The gray lava rim is 
remarkably sculptured. The water is re- 
markably blue, a lovely turquoise along the 
edges, and, in the deep parts, seen from 
above, extremely dark. The contrast on a 
sunny day between the unreal, fairy-like 
rim across the lake and the fantastic sculp- 
tures at one’s feet, and, in the lake be- 
tween, the myriad gradations from faintest 
turquoise to deepest Prussian blue, dwells 
long in the memory. 
Unforgettable, also, are the twisted and 
contorted lava formations of the inner rim. 
A boat ride along the edge of the lake 
reveals these in a thousand changes. At 
one point near shore a mass of curiously 
carved lava is called the Phantom Ship 
because, seen at a distance, it suggests a 
ship under full sail. The illusion at dusk 
or by moonlight is striking. In certain 
slants of light, the Phantom Ship suddenly 
disappears — a phantom indeed. 
