 Part 11 of the Book of the National Parks, this LibriVox recording, is in the public domain. The Book of the National Parks by Robert Sterling-Yard, Lassen Peak and Mount Katmai. The one a National Park in Northern California, the other a National Monument in Alaska. Because most of the conspicuous volcanic eruptions of our day have occurred in warmer climbs nearer the equator, we usually think of volcanoes as tropical or semi-tropical phenomena. The Suvious is in the Mediterranean, Pele in the Caribbean, Manila and Kilauea on the Hawaiian Islands. Of course there is Lassen Peak in California, the exception as we say, which proves the rule. As a fact, many of the world's greatest volcanoes are very far indeed from the tropics. Volcanoes result from the movement of earth masses seeking equilibrium underneath the earth's crust, but near enough to the surface to enable molten rock under terrific pressure to work upward from isolated pockets and break through. Volcanoes occur in all latitudes, even Iceland has its great volcano. It is true that the volcano map shows them congregating thickly in a broad band of which the equator is the center, but it also shows them bordering the Pacific Coast from Patagonia to Alaska, crossing the ocean through the Aleutian Islands and extending far down the Asian Coast. It also shows many inland volcanoes isolated and in series. The distribution is exceedingly wide. Volcanoes usually occur in belts which may or may not coincide with lines of weakening in the earth's crust below, hence the series of flaming torches of prehistoric days which, their fires now extinguished and their sides swathed in ice, have become in our day the row of spectacular peaks extending from Northern California to Puget Sound. Hence also the long range of threatening summits which skirts Alaska-Southern shore today the world's most active volcanic belt. Here it was that Katmai's summit was lost in the mighty explosion of June 1912, one of enormous violence which followed tremendous eruptions elsewhere along the same coast and is expected to be followed by others, perhaps of even greater immensity and power. These two volcanic belts contain each an active volcano which Congress has made the center of a national reservation. Lassen Peak, some wise men believe, is the last exhibit of activity in the dying volcanism of the Cascade Mountains. Mount Katmai is the latest and greatest exhibit in a volcanic belt which is believed to be young and growing. The Building of the Cascades Millions of years ago, in the period which geologists call tertiary, the pressure under that part of the crust of the earth which is now Washington, Oregon and Northern California became too powerful for solid rock to withstand. Long lines of hills appeared parallel to the sea and gradually rose hundreds and perhaps thousands of feet. These cracked and from the long summit fissures issued hot lava which spread over enormous areas and cooling laid the foundations for the coming Cascade Mountains. When the gaping fissures eased the pressure from beneath, they filled with ash and lava except at certain vent holes, around which grew the volcanoes which, when their usefulness as chimneys passed, became those cones of ice and snow which now are the glory of our Northwest. There may have been at one time many hundreds of these volcanoes, big and little, most of them doubtless quickly perished under the growing slopes of their larger neighbors, and as they became choked with ash the lava which had been finding vent through them sought other doors of escape and found them in the larger volcanoes. Thus, by natural selection, they survived at last that nightly company of monsters now uniformed in ice which includes from north to south such celebrities as Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Mount Hood, Vanished Mount Mazama, Mount Shasta, and Living Lassen Peak. Whether or not several of these vast beacons lit Pacific's nights at one time can never be known with certainty, but probability makes the claim. Whether or not in their decline the canoes of prehistoric men found harbor by guidance of their pillars of fire by night and their pillars of smoke by day is less probable but possible. One at least of the giant band, Lassen Peak, is semi-active today, and at least two others, Mount Rainier and Mount Baker, offer evidences of internal heat beneath their mail of ice. And early settlers in the Northwest report Indian traditions of the awful cataclysm in which Mount Rainier lost 2,000 feet of cone. Lassen Peak, National Park. Lassen Peak, the last of the Cascades in active eruption, rises between the northern end of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in which it is locally but wrongly considered a part in the Clemate Mountains, a spur of the Cascades. Actually, it is the southern terminus of the Cascades. Though quiet for more than 200 years, the region long has enjoyed scientific and popular interest because it possesses hot springs, mud volcanoes, and other minor volcanic phenomena, and particularly because its cones, which are easily climbed and studied, have remained very nearly perfect. Besides Lassen Peak, whose altitude is 10,437 feet, there are others of large size and great interest close by. Prospect Peak attains the altitude of 9,200 feet, Harkness Peak 9,000 feet, and Cinder Cone, a specimen of unusual beauty 6,907 feet. Because it seemed desirable to conserve the best two of these examples of recent volcanism, President Taft in 1906 created the Lassen Peak in the Cinder Cone National Monuments. Doubtless there would have been no change in the status of these reservations, had not Lassen Peak broken its long sleep in the spring of 1914, with a series of eruptions covering a period of 19 months. This centered attention upon the region, and in August 1916, Congress created the Lassen Volcanic National Park, a reservation of 124 square miles, which included both national monuments, other notable cones of the neighborhood, and practically all the hot springs and other lesser phenomena. Four months after the creation of the National Park, Lassen Peak ceased activity with its 212th eruption. It is not expected to resume. For some years, however, scientists will continue to class it as semi-active. These eruptions, none of which produced any considerable lava flow, are regarded as probably the dying gas of the volcanic energy of the Cascades. They began in May 1914, with sharp explosions of steam and smoke from the summit crater. The news aroused widespread interest throughout the United States. It was the first volcanic eruption within the National Boundaries. During the following summer, there were 38 slight similar eruptions, some of which scattered ashes in the neighborhood. The spectacle was one of magnificence because of the heavy columns of smoke. Eruptions increased in frequency with winter, 56 occurring during the balance of the year. About the end of March 1915, according to Dr. J. S. Diller of the United States Geological Survey, new lava had filled the crater and overflowed the west slope a thousand feet. On May 22nd following occurred the greatest eruption of the series. A mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke burst four miles upward in the air. The spectacle, one of grandeur, was plainly visible even from the Sacramento Valley. At night, writes Dr. Diller, flashes of light from the mountain summit, flying rocket-like bodies and cloud glows over the crater, reflecting the light from incandescent lavas below, were seen by many observers from various points of view, and appear to indicate that much of the material erupted was sufficiently hot to be luminous. Another interesting phenomenon was the blast of superheated gas, which swept down Lost Creek and Hot Creek valleys. For ten miles it withered and destroyed every living thing in its path. Large trees were uprooted, forests were scorched to a cinder, snow fields were instantly turned to water, and flooded the lower valleys with rushing tides. Later examination showed that this explosion had opened a new fissure, and that the old and new craters, now joined in one, were filled with a lava lid. Following this, the eruptions steadily declined in violence till their close the following December. As a national park, though undeveloped and unequipped as yet, Lassen has many charms besides its volcanic phenomena. Its western and southern slopes are thickly forested and possess fine lakes and streams. Several thousand persons, largely motorists, have visited it yearly of late. There are hot springs at Drake's Bad, just within the southern border, which have local popularity as baths. The trout fishing in lake and stream is excellent, and shooting is encouraged in the extensive national forest which surrounds the park, but not in the park itself, which is a sanctuary. In spite of the hunting, deer are still found. The greatest pleasure, however, will be found in exploring the volcanoes, from whose summits views are obtainable of many miles of this tumbled and splendidly forested part of California and of the dry plains of the Great Basin on its east. The Katmay National Monument We turn from the dying flutter of California's last remaining active volcano to the excessive violence of a volcano in the extremely active Alaska coast range. The Mount Katmay National Monument will have few visitors because it is inaccessible by anything less than an exploring party. We know it principally from the reports of four expeditions by the National Geographic Society. Informed by these reports, President Wilson created it a national monument in 1918. A remarkable volcanic belt begins in southern Alaska at the head of Cook Inlet and follows the coast in a broad southwesternly curve, 1500 miles long, through the Alaskan Peninsula to the end of the Aleutian Islands, nearly enclosing Bering Sea. It is very ancient. Its mainland segment contains a dozen peaks, which are classed as active or latent, and its island segment many other volcanoes. St. Augustine's eruption in 1883 was one of extreme violence. Kugak was active in 1889. Veniaminov's eruption in 1892 ranked with St. Augustine's, Redoubt erupted in 1902, and Katmay with excessive violence in June 1912. The entire belt is alive with volcanic excitement. Pavlov, at the peninsula's end, has been streaming for years, and several others are under expectant scientific observation. Katmay may be outdone at any time. Katmay is a peak of 6,970 feet altitude on Trecherish-Shelikov Strait opposite Kodiak Island. It rises from an inhospitable shore, far from steamer routes or other recognized lines of travel. Until it announced itself with a roar which was heard at Juno, 750 miles away, its very existence was probably unknown except to a few prospectors, fishermen, geographers, and geologists. Earthquakes followed the blast, then followed night of smoke and dust. Darkness lasted 60 hours at Kodiak, 100 miles away. Dust fell as far as Ketchikan, 900 miles away. Fumes were born on the wind as far as Vancouver Island, 1500 miles away. Weather Bureau reports noted haziness as far away as Virginia during succeeding weeks, and the extraordinary haziness in Europe during the following summer is noted by Dr. C. S. Abbott, Director of the Astrophysical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution, in connection with this eruption. Nevertheless, Katmay is by no means the greatest volcanic eruption. Katmay's output of ash was about 5 cubic miles. Several eruptions have greatly exceeded that in bulk, notably that of Tamboro in the island of Sambawa, near Java in 1815, when more than 28 cubic miles of ash were flung to the winds. Comparison with many great eruptions whose output was principally lava is, of course, impossible. The scene of this explosion is the national monument of today. The hollowed shell of Katmay's summit is a spectacle of wonderment and grandeur. Robert F. Griggs, who headed the expeditions which explored it, states that the area of the crater is 8.4 square miles, measured along the highest point of the rim. The abyss is 2.6 miles long, 7.6 miles in circumference, and 4.2 square miles in area. A lake has formed within it, which is 1.4 miles long, and nine-tenths of a mile wide. Its depth is unknown. The precipice from the lake to the highest point of the rim measures 3700 feet. The most interesting exhibit of the Katmay National Monument, however, is a group of neighboring valleys just across the western divide, the principal one of which Mr. Griggs, with picturesque inaccuracy, named the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. For from its floor and sides, and the floor and sides of smaller tributary valleys, superheated steam issues in thousands of hissing columns. It is an appalling spectacle. The temperatures of this steam are extremely high. Griggs reports one instance, a 432 degree centigrade, which would equal 948 degrees Fahrenheit. In some vents he found a higher temperature at the surface than a few feet down its throat. The very ground is hot. This phenomenal valley is not to be fully explained offhand. As Griggs says, there are many problems to work out. The steam vents appear to be very recent. They did not exist when spur across the valley in 1898, and Martin heard nothing of them when he was in the near neighborhood in 1903 and 1904. The same volcanic impulse, which found its main relief in the explosive eruption of nearby Katmay in 1912, no doubt cracked the deep lying rocks beneath this group of valleys, exposing superheated rocks to subterranean waters, which forthwith turned to steam, and forced these vents for escape. Griggs reports that volcanic gases mingle freely with the steam. The waters may have one or more of several sources. Perhaps they come from deep springs, originating in surface snows and rains. Perhaps they seep in from the sea. Whatever their origin, the region especially interests us as a probably early stage of phenomena whose later stages find conspicuous examples in several of our national parks. Someday, with the cooling of the region, this may become the valley of 10,000 hot springs. But it is useful and within scientific probability to carry this conception much further. The comparison between Katmay's steaming valleys and the geyser basin of Yellowstone is especially instructive, because Yellowstone's basins doubtless once were what Katmay's steaming valleys are now. The valley of 10,000 smokes may well be a coming geyser field of enormous size. The explanation is simple. Bunsen's geyser theory, now generally accepted, presupposes a column of water filling the geyser vent above a deep rocky superheated chamber, in which entering water is being rapidly turned into steam. When this steam becomes plentiful enough and sufficiently compressed to overcome the weight of the water in the vent, it suddenly expands and hurls the water out. That is what makes the geysers play. Now one difference between the Yellowstone geyser fields and Katmay's steaming valley is just a difference in temperature. The entire depths of earth under these valleys is heated far above the boiling point, so that it is not possible for water to remain in the vents. It turns to steam as fast as it collects and rushes out at the top in a continuous flow. But when enough thousands of centuries elapsed for the rocks between the surface and the deep internal pockets to cool, the water will remain in many vents as water, until, at regular intervals, enough steam gathers below to hurl it out. Then these valleys will become basins of geysers and hot springs like Yellowstones. Part 12 of the Book of the National Parks This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Book of the National Parks by Robert Sterling Yard Mount Rainier, I.C. Octopus Mount Rainier National Park, West Central Washington, Area, 324 square miles Mount Rainier, the loftiest volcano within the boundaries of the United States, one of our greatest mountains, and certainly our most imposing mountain, rises from Western Central Washington to an altitude of 14,408 feet above mean tide in Puget Sound. It is 42 miles in direct line from the center of Tacoma and 57 miles from Seattle, from both of which its glistening peak is often a prominent spectacle. With favoring atmospheric conditions, it can be seen 150 miles away. North and south of Rainier, the Cascade Mountains bear other snow-capped volcanic peaks. Baker rises 10,703 feet, Adams, 12,307 feet, St. Helens, 9,697 feet, Hood, 11,225 feet, and Shasta, 14,162 feet. But Rainier surpasses them all in height, bulk, and majesty, once it stood 16,000 feet, as is indicated by the slopes leading up to its broken and flattened top. The supposition is that nearly 2,000 feet of its apex were carried away in one or more explosive eruptions long before history, but possibly not before man. There are Indian traditions of a cataclysm. There were slight eruptions in 1843, 1854, 1858, and 1870, and from the two craters at its summit issue many jets of steam which comfort the chilled climber. This immense sleeping cone is blanketed in ice. Twenty-eight well-defined glaciers flow down its sides, several of which are nearly six miles long. Imagining ourselves looking down from an airplane at a great height, we can think of seeing it as an enormous frozen octopus sprawling upon the grass, for its curving arms of ice reaching out in all directions penetrate one of the finest forests even of our northwest. The contrast between these cold glaciers and the luxuriantly wild flowered and forest-edged meadows which border them as snugly as so many rippling summer rivers affords one of the most delightful features of Mount Rainier National Park. Paradise Inn, for example, stands in a meadow of wildflowers between Rainier's icy front on the one side and the snowy-tatooche range on the other with the Nisqually Glacier fifteen minutes walk away. The casual tourist who has looked at the snowy range of the Rockies from the distant comfort of Estes Park or the high Sierra from the dining porch of the Glacier Point Hotel receives an invigorating shock of astonishment at beholding Mount Rainier even at a distance. Its isolation gives it enormous scenic advantage. Mount Whitney of the Sierra, our loftiest summit, which overtops at ninety-three feet, is merely the climax in a tempentuous ocean of snowy neighbors, which are only less lofty. Rainier towers nearly eight thousand feet above its surrounding mountains. It springs so powerfully into the air that one involuntarily looks for signs of life and action. But no smoke rises from its broken top. It is still and helpless, shackled in bonds of ice. Will it remain bound? Or will it, with due warning, destroy in a day the elaborate system of glaciers which countless centuries have built, and leave a new and different, and perhaps, after years of glacial recovery, even a more gloriously beautiful Mount Rainier than now? The extraordinary individuality of the American national parks, their difference each from every other, is nowhere more marked than here. Single-peak glacial systems of the size of Rainier's, of course, are found wherever mountains of great size rise in close masses, far above the line of perpetual snow. The Alaskan Range and the Himalayas may possess many, but if there is anywhere another mountain of approximate height and magnitude, carrying an approximate glacier system, which rises eight thousand feet higher than its neighbors out of a parkland of lakes, forests, and wildflower gardens, which nature seems to have made especially for pleasuring, and the heart of which is reached in four hours from a large city, situated upon a transatlantic railway line, I have not heard of it. Seen a hundred miles away, or from the streets of Seattle and Tacoma, or from the motor road approaching the park, or from the park itself, or from any of the many interglacial valleys, one never gets used to the spectacle of Rainier. The shock of surprise, the instant sense of impossibility, ever repeats itself. The mountain assumes a thousand aspects which change with the hours, with the position of the beholder, and with atmospheric conditions. Sometimes it is fairy-like, sometimes threatening, always majestic. One is not surprised at the Indian sphere. Often Rainier withdraws his presence altogether behind the horizon miss. Even a few miles away no hint betrays his existence, and very often, shrouded in snowstorm or cloud, he is lost to those at his foot. Mysterious and compelling is this ghostly mountain to us who see it for the first time, unable to look long away while it remains in view. It is the same, old Washingtonians tell me, with those who have kept watching it every day of visibility for many years. And so it was to Captain George Vancouver when, first of white men, he looked upon it from the bridge of the discovery on May 8th, 1792. The weather was serene and pleasant, he wrote under that date, and the country continued to exhibit, between us and the eastern snowy range, the same luxuriant appearance. At its eastern extremity, Mount Baker bore by compass North 22 East, the round snowy mountain, now forming its southern extremity, and which, after my friend Rear Admiral Rainier, I distinguished by the name of Mount Rainier, bore North, South 42 East. Thus Mount Rainier was discovered and named at the same time, presumably on the same day, eighteen days later, having followed the inlet, meaning Puget Sound, to his point of nearest approach to the mountain, Vancouver wrote. We found the inlet to terminate here in an extensive circular compact bay, whose waters washed the base of Mount Rainier, though its elevated summit was yet at a very considerable distance from the shore, with which it was connected by several ridges of hills, rising towards it with gradual ascent and much regularity. The forest trees and several shades of verdure that covered the hills gradually decreased in point of beauty until they became invisible, when the perpetual clothing of snow commenced, which seemed to form a horizontal line from north to south along this range of rugged mountains, from whose summit Mount Rainier rose conspicuously and seemed as much elevated above them as they were above the level of the sea, the whole producing a most grand, picturesque effect. Vancouver made no attempt to reach the mountain, dreamer of great dreams though he was, how like a madhouse nightmare would have seemed to him a true prophecy of mighty engines, whose like no human mind had then conceived, running upon roads of steel and asphalt, at speeds which no human mind had then imagined, whirling thousands upon thousands of pleasure seekers, from the shores of that very inlet to the glistening mountains flowered sides. Just one century after the discovery the Geological Society of America started the movement to make Mount Rainier a national park, within a year the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Geographic Society, the Appalachian Mountain Club, and the Sierra Club joined in the memorialization of Congress. Six years later in 1899 the park was created. Two. The principal entrance to the park is up the Nisqually River at the south. Here entered the pioneer James Longmire many years ago and the roads established by him and his fellows determined the direction of the first national park development. Longmire Springs, for many years the nearest resort to the Great Mountain, lies just within the southern boundary. Beyond it the road follows the Nisqually and Paradise valleys, under glorious groves of pine, cedar, and hemlock, along ravines of striking beauty, past waterfalls, and the snout of the Nisqually Glacier. Finally to inimitable Paradise Park, it's in its hotel camp and its public camping grounds. Other centers of wilderness life have been since established and the marvelous north side of the park will be opened by the construction of a northwesterly highway up the valley of the Carbon River. Already a fine trail entirely around the mountain connects these various points of development. But the southern entrance and Paradise Park will remain for many years the principal center of exploration and pleasuring. Here begins the popular trail to the summit. Here begin the trails to many of the finest viewpoints, the best known falls, the most accessible of the many exquisite interglacial gardens. Here the Nisqually Glacier is reached in a few minutes walk, at a point particularly adapted for ice climbing, and the comfortable viewing of ice falls, crevasses, caves, and other glacier phenomena, grandly exhibited in fullest beauty. It is a spot which can have in the nature of things few equals elsewhere in scenic variety and grandeur. On one side is the vast glistening mountain. On the other side the high serrated Tautouche Range, spattered with perpetual snow. In middle distance details of long winding glaciers seamed with crevasses. In the foreground gorgeous rolling meadows of wildflowers, dotted and bordered with equally luxuriant and richly varied forest groves. From close by elevations a gorgeous tumbled wilderness of hills, canyons, rivers, lakes, and falls, back grounded by the cascades, and accented by distant snowy peaks. The whole pervaded by the ever-present mountain, always the same yet grandly different, from different points of view in the detail of its glaciered size. The variety of pleasuring is similarly very large. One can ride horseback round the mountain in a leisurely week, or spend a month or more exploring the greater wilderness of the park. One can tramp the trails on long trips, camping by the way, or vary a vacation with numerous short tramps. Or one can loaf away the days in dreamy content, with now and then a walk, and now and then a ride. Or one can explore glaciers and climb minor mountains. The Tautouche Range alone will furnish the stiffest as well as the most delightful climbing, with wonderful rewards upon the jagged summits, while short climbs to points upon nearby snow fields will afford coasting without sleds, an exciting sport, especially appreciated when one is young. In July before the valley snows melt away, there is tobogganing and skiing within a short walk of the inn. The leisurely tour afoot around the mountain with pack-train following the trail is an experience never to be forgotten. One passes the snouts of a score of glaciers, each producing its river, and sees the mountain from every angle, besides having a continuous panorama of the surrounding country, including Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Mount Baker, Tacoma, Seattle, Mount Olympus, the Pacific Ocean, and the Cascades from the Columbia to the International Line. Shorter excursions to other beautiful parklands offer a wide variety of pleasure. Indian Henry's Hunting Ground, Van Trump Park, Summerland, and others provide charm and beauty as well as fascinating changes in the aspect of the Great Mountain. Of course the ascent of the mountain is the ultimate objective of the climber, but few comparatively will attempt it. It is a feat in endurance, which not many are physically fit to undertake. While to the unfit there are no rewards. There is comparatively little rock climbing, but what there is will try wind and muscle. Most of the way is tramping up long, snow-covered, and ice-covered slopes, with little rest from the start at midnight to the return, if all goes well, before the following sundown. Face and hands are painted to protect against sunburn, and colored glasses avert snow blindness. Success is so largely a matter of physical condition that many ambitious tourists are advised to practice a while on the Tautouche Range before attempting the trip. Do you see Pinnacle Peak up there, they ask you? If you can make that, you can make Rainier. Better try it first. And many who try Pinnacle Peak do not make it. As with every very lofty mountain, the view from the summit depends upon the conditions of the moment. Often Rainier's summit is lost in mists and clouds, and there is no view. Very often on the clearest day clouds continually gather and dissipate, one is lucky in the particular time he is on top. Frequently there are partial views, occasionally every condition favors, and then indeed the reward is great. SF Emmons, who made the second ascent, and after whom one of Rainier's greatest glaciers was named, stood on the summit upon one of those fortunate moments. The entire mountain in all its inspiring detail lay at his feet a wonder spectacle of first magnitude. Looking to the more distant country, he wrote, the whole stretch of Puget Sound, seeming like a pretty little lake, embowered in green, could be seen in the northwest, beyond which the Olympic mountains extend out into the Pacific Ocean. The Cascade Mountains, lying dwarfed at our feet, could be traced northward into British Columbia and southward into Oregon. While above them, at comparatively regular intervals, rose the ghost-like forms of our companion volcanoes. To the eastward the eye ranged over hundreds of miles, over chain on chain of mountain ridges which gradually disappeared in the dim blue distance. Notwithstanding the rigors of the ascent, parties leave paradise in for the summit every suitable day. Hundreds make the ascent each summer. To the experienced mountain climber, it presents no special difficulties. To the inexperienced, it is an extraordinary adventure. Certainly no one knows his Mount Rainier who has not measured its gigantic proportions in units of his own endurance. The first successful ascent was made by General Hazard Stevens and P. B. Van Trump, both residents of Washington, on August 17, 1870. Starting from James Longmire's, with Mr. Longmire himself as guide up the Nisqually Valley, they spent several days in finding the Indians Schluskin, who would take them to the summit. With him then, assuming Longmire's place, Stevens and Van Trump started on their great adventure. It proved more of an adventure than they anticipated. For not far below the picturesque falls which they named after Schluskin, the Indians stopped and begged them to go no farther. From that compilation of scholarly worth by Professor Edmund S. Meaney, President of the Mountaineers, entitled, Mount Rainier, A Record of Exploration, I quote General Stevens' translation of Schluskin's protest. Listen to me, my good friends, said Schluskin, I must talk with you. Your plan to climb Tacoma is all foolishness. No one can do it and live. A mighty chief dwells upon the summit in a lake of fire. He brooks no intruders. Many years ago my grandfather, the greatest and bravest chief of all the Yakima, climbed nearly to the summit. There he caught sight of the fiery lake, and the infernal demon coming to destroy him and fled down the mountain, glad to escape with his life. Where he failed, no other Indian ever dared make the attempt. At first the way is easy, the task seems light. The broad snow feels over which I have often hunted the mountain goat all for an inviting path, but above them you will have to climb over steep rocks, overhanging deep gorges, where a misstep would hurl you far down, down to certain death. You must creep over steep snow banks and cross deep crevasses, where a mountain goat would hard to keep his footing. You must climb along steep cliffs, where rocks are continually falling to crush you, or knock you off into the bottomless depths. And if you should escape these perils and reach the great snowy dome, then a bitterly cold and furious tempest will sweep you off into space like a withered leaf. But if by some miracle you should survive all these perils, the mighty demon of Takoma will surely kill you and throw you into the fiery lake. Don't you go, you make my heart sick when you talk of climbing Takoma. You perish if you try to climb Takoma. You will perish and your people will blame me. Don't go, don't go. If you go, I will wait here two days and then go to Olympia and tell your people that you perished on Takoma. Give me a paper to them, to let them know that I am not to blame for your death. My talk is ended. Except for the demon and his Lake of Fire, Slouskin's portent of hardship proved to be a literal, even a modest prophecy. At five o'clock in the evening, after eleven hours of struggle, with precipices and glaciers, exhausted, chilled and without food, they faced a night of zero gales upon the summit. The discovery of comforting steam jets in a neighboring crater, the reality perhaps of Slouskin's Lake of Fire, made the night livable, though one of suffering. It was afternoon of the following day before they reached camp and found an astonished Slouskin, then in fact on the point of leaving to report their unfortunate destruction. Stevens and Van Trump were doubly pioneers, for their way up the mountain is, in general direction at least, the popular way today, greatly bettered since, however, by the shortcuts and easier detours, which have followed upon experience. Mount Rainier, Icy Octopus, continued. 3. Our four volcanic national parks exemplify four states of volcanic history. Lassen Peak is semi-active, Mount Rainier is dormant, Yellowstone is dead, and Crater Lake marks the spot through which a volcano collapsed and disappeared. Rainier's usefulness as a volcanic example, however, is lost in its supreme usefulness as a glacial exhibit. The student of glaciers, who begins here with the glacier in action, and then studies the effects of glaciers upon igneous rocks, among the cirks of the Sierra, and upon sedimentary rocks in the glacier national park, will study the masters, which, by the way, is a tip for universities contemplating summer field classes. Upon the truncated top of Mount Rainier, nearly three miles in diameter, rise two small cinder cones, which form, at the junction of their craters, the mountain's rounded, snow-covered summit. It is known as Columbia Crest. As this only rises 400 feet above the older, containing crater, it is not always identified from below, as the highest point. Two commanding rocky elevations of the old rim, point success on its southwest side, 14,150 feet, and Liberty Cap on its northwest side, 14,112 feet, appear to be, from the mountain's foot, its points of greatest altitude. Rainier's top, though covered with snow and ice, except in spots buried by internal heat, is not the source of its glaciers, although its extensive ice fields flow into and feed several of them. The glaciers themselves, even those continuous with the summit ice, really originate about 4,000 feet below the top, in cirks or pockets, which are principally fed with the tremendous snows of winter, and the wind sweepings and avalanches from the summit. The Pacific winds are charged heavily with moisture, which descends upon Rainier in snows of great depth. Even Paradise Park is snowed under from 12 to 30 feet. There is a photograph of a ranger cabin in February, which shows only a slight snow mound with a hole in its top, which locates the hidden chimney. Effie Mathis, the geologist, tells of a snow level of 50 feet depth in Indian Henry's Hunting Ground, one of Rainier's most beautiful parks, in which the wind had sunk a crater-like hollow from the bottom of which emerged the chimney. These snows replenish the glaciers, which have a combined surface of 45 square miles, along their entire length, in addition to making enormous accumulations in the cirks. Beginning then in its cirque, as a river often begins in its lake, the glacier flows downward, river-like, along a course of least resistance. Here it pours over a precipice in broken falls, to flatten out in perfect texture in the even stretch below. Here it plunges down rapids, breaking into crevasses as the river in corresponding phase breaks into ripples. Here it rises smoothly over rocks upon its bottom. Here it strikes against a wall of rock and turns sharply. The parallel between the glacier and the river is striking and consistent, notwithstanding that the geologist, for technical reasons, will quarrel with you if you picturesquely call your glacier a river of ice. Any elevated viewpoint will disclose several or many of these mighty streams, flowing in snake-like curves down the mountainside. The greater streams swollen here and there by tributaries, as rivers are swollen by entering creeks, and all eventually reach a point determined by temperature and therefore not constant, where the river of ice becomes the river of water. Beginning white and pure, the glacier gradually closed itself in rock and dirt. Gathering as it moves, narrow edges of matter filter from the shores. Later on it heaps these up upon its lower banks. They are lateral moraines. Two merging glaciers unite the material carried on their joined edges and form a medial moraine, a ribbon broadening and thickening as it descends. A glacier made up of several tributaries carries as many medial moraines. It also carries much unorganized matter. Fallen from the cliffs or scraped from the bottom. Approaching the snout, all these accumulations merge into one moraine, and so soiled has the ice now become that it is difficult to tell which is ice and which is rock. At its snout is an ice cave far inside of which the resultant river originates. But the glacier has one very important function which the river does not share. Far up at its beginnings it freezes to the back wall of its cirque, and moving forward pulls out or plucks out as the geologists have it. Masses of rock which it carries away in its current. The resulting cavities in the back of the cirque fill with ice, which in its turn freezes fast and plucks out more rock. And presently the back wall of the cirque, undermined, falls on the ice and is also carried away. There is left the precipice, often surely perpendicular, and as the process repeats itself this precipice moves backward. At the beginning of this process it must be understood, the glacier lies upon a tilted surface, far more elevated than now when you see it in its old age, sunk deep in its self-dubred trench, and while it is plucking backward and breaking off an ever-increasing precipice above it, it is plucking downward too. If the rock is even in structure, this downward cutting may be very nearly perpendicular. But if the rock lies in strata of varying hardness, shelves form where the harder strata are encountered because it takes longer to cut them through. In this way are formed the long series of steps which we often see in empty glacial cirques. By this process of backward and downward plucking, the carbon glacier bit its way into the north side of the Great Volcano until it invaded the very foundations of the summit and created the Willis Wall, which drops avalanches 3600 feet to the glacier below. Willis Wall is nearly perpendicular because the lava rock at this point was homogeneous. But in the alternating shale and limestone strata of Glacier National Park, on the other hand, the glaciers of old dug cirques of many shelves. The monster ice streams which dug glaciers mighty valleys have vanished, but often tiny remainders are still seen upon the cirque's topmost shelves. So we see that the glacier acquires its cargo of rock, not only by scraping its sides and plucking it from the bottom of its cirque and valley, but by quarrying backward till undermined material drops upon it—all of this in fulfillment of nature's purpose of wearing down the highlands for the upbuilding of the hollows. This is not the place for a detailed description of Mount Rainier's 28 glaciers. A glance at the map will tell something of the story. Extending northeasterly from the summit will be seen the greatest unbroken glacial mass. Here are the Emmons and the Winthrop glaciers, much the largest of all. This is the quarter farthest from the Sun, upon which its rays strike at the flattest angle. The melting then is least here, but still a more potent reason for their larger mass is found in their position on the lee-quarter of the peak, the prevailing winds whirling in the snow from both sides. The greater diversification of the other sides of the mountain, with extruding cliffs, cleavers, and enormous rock masses, tend strongly to scenic variety and grandeur. Some of the rock cleavers which divide glaciers stand several thousand feet in height, veritable fences. Some of the cliffs would be mountains of no mean size elsewhere, and around their sides pour mighty glacial currents, cascading to the depths below, where again they may meet and even merge. The Nisqually Glacier naturally is the most celebrated, not because of scenic superiority, but because it is the neighbor and the playground of the visiting thousands. Its perfect and wonderful beauty are not in excess of many others, and it is much smaller than many. The Kallitz Glacier nearby exceeds it in size, and is one of the stateliest. It springs from a circ below Gibraltar, a massive near-summit rock, whose well-deserved celebrity is due in some part to its nearness to the traveled summit trail. The point I am making is not in depreciation of any of the celebrated sites from the southern side, but in emphasis of the fact that a hundred other sites would be as celebrated or more celebrated were they as well known. The Mount Rainier National Park at this writing is replete with splendors which are yet to be discovered by the greater traveling public. The Great Northside, for instance, with its mighty walls, its magnificently scenic glaciers, its lakes, canyons, and enormous areas of flowered and forested pleasure grounds, is destined to wide development. It is a national park in itself. Already roads enter to camps at the foot of great glaciers. The Westside also, with its four spectacular glaciers, which pass under the names of Moich and Tahoma, attain sublimity. It remains also for future occupation. Many of the minor phenomena, while common also to other areas of snow and ice, have fascination for the visitor. Snow cups are always objects of interest and beauty. Instead of reducing a snow surface evenly, the warm sun sometimes melts it in pattern cups, set close together like the squares of a checkerboard. These deepen gradually, till they suggest a gigantic honeycomb, whose sails are sometimes several feet deep. In one of these, one summer day in the Sierra, I saw a stumbling horse deposit his rider, a high official of one of our western railroads, and there he sat, helpless, hands and feet emerging from the top, while we recovered enough from laughter to help him out. Pink snow always arouses lively interest. A microscopic plant, protococcus novellus, growing in occasional patches beneath the surface of old snow, gradually emerges with a pink glow, which sometimes covers acres. On the tongue its flavor suggests watermelon. No doubt many other microscopic plants thrive in the snow fields and glaciers, which remain invisible for lack of color. Insects also inhabit these glaciers. There are several thrysinura, which suggest the sand fleas of our seashores, but are seldom noticed because of their small size. More noticeable are the mesenchytrius, a slender brown worm which attains the length of an inch. They may be seen in great numbers on the lower glaciers in the summer, but on warm days retreat well under the surface. The extraordinary forest luxuriance at the base of Mount Rainier is due to moisture and climate. The same heavy snowfalls which feed the glaciers store up water supplies for the forest and meadow. The winters at the base of the mountain are mild. The lower valleys are covered with a dense growth of fir, hemlock, and cedar. Pushing skyward in competition for the sunlight, trees attain great heights. Protected from winter severity by the thickness of the growth, and from fire by the dampness of the soil, great age is assured, which means thick and heavy trunks. The Douglas fir, easily the most important timber tree of western America, here reaches its two hundred feet in massive forests. While occasional individuals grow 250 to 275 feet, with a diameter of 8 feet. The bark at the base of these monsters is sometimes 10 inches thick. The western hemlock also reaches equal heights in competition for the light, with diameters of 5 feet or more. Red cedar, white pines of several varieties, several firs, and a variety of hemlocks complete the list of conifers. Deciduous trees are few and not important. Broadleafed maples, cotton woods, and alders are their principal species. Higher up the mountain slopes, the forest thin and lessen in size, while increasing in picturesqueness. The Douglas fir and other monsters of the lower levels disappear. Their place is taken by other species. At an altitude of 4,000 feet, the Angleman spruce and other mountain trees begin to appear, not in the massed ranks of the lower levels, but in groves bordering the flowered opens. The extreme limit of tree growth on Mount Rainier is about 7,000 feet of altitude, above which one finds only occasional, distorted, wind-tortured mountain hemlocks. There is no well-defined timberline as on other lofty mountains. Avalanches and snow slides keep the upper levels swept and bare. The wildflower catalog is too long to enumerate here. John Muir expresses the belief that no other subalpine floral gardens excel Rainier's in profusion and gorgeousness. The region differs little from other Pacific regions of similar altitude in variety of species. In luxuriance it is unsurpassed. 5. According to Theodore Winthrop, who visited the northwest in 1853 and published a book entitled The Canoe and the Saddle, which had wide vogue at the time and is consulted today, Mount Rainier had its Indian rip van Winkle. The story was told in great detail, by Hammett Chew, a frowsy ancient of the Squaliyamish. The hero was a wise and widely fisherman and hunter. Also, as his passion was gained, he became an excellent businessman. He always had salmon and berries when food became scarce and prices high. Gradually he amassed large savings in Hayakwa, the little perforated shell which was the most valued form of wampum, the Indian's money. The richer he got, the stronger his passion grew for Hayakwa, and when a spirit told him in a dream a vast hoarse at the summit of Rainier, he determined to climb the mountain. The spirit was Tamanoas, which Winthrop explains, is the vague Indian personification of the supernatural. So he threaded the forest and climbed the mountain's glistening side. At the summit he looked over the rim into a large basin in the bottom of which was a black lake surrounded by purple rock. At the lake's eastern end stood three monuments. The first was as tall as a man and had a head carved like a salmon. The second was the image of a camis bulb. The two represented the great necessities of Indian life. The third was a stone elk's head with the antlers in velvet. At the foot of this monument he dug a hole. Suddenly a noise behind him caused him to turn. An otter clamored over the edge of the lake and struck the snow with its tail. Eleven others followed. Each was twice as big as any otter he had ever seen. Their chief was four times as big. The eleven sat themselves in a circle around him, and the leader climbed upon the stone elk head. At first the treasure-seeker was abashed, but he had come to find Hayakwa, and he went on digging. At every thirteenth stroke the leader of the otters tapped the stone elk with his tail, and the eleven followers tapped the snow with their tails. Once they all gathered closer and whacked the digger good and hard with their tails. But, though astonished and badly bruised, he went on working. Presently he broke his elk horn pick, but the biggest otter seized another in his teeth and handed it to him. Finally his pick struck a flat rock with a hollow sound, and the otters all drew near and gazed into the hole, breathing excitedly. He lifted the rock and under it found a cavity filled to the brim with pure white Hayakwa. Every shell large, unbroken and beautiful, all were neatly hung on strings. Never was treasure quest so successful. The otters recognizing him as the favorite of Tamanous retired to a distance and gazed upon him respectfully. But the miser, writes the narrator, never dreamed of gratitude, never thought to hang a string from the buried treasure about the salmon and camas, Tamanous stones, and two strings around the elk's head. No, all must be his own, all he could carry now and the rest for the future. Greedily he loaded himself with the booty, and laboriously climbed to the rim of the bowl, prepared for the descent of the mountain. The otters, puffing in concert, plunged again into the lake, which at once disappeared under a black cloud. Straight way a terrible storm arose, through which the voice of Tamanous screamed tauntingly. Blackness closed around him, the din was horrible. Terrified he threw back into the bowl behind him five strings of Hayakwa to propitiate Tamanous, and there followed a momentary lull, during which he started homework. But immediately the storm burst again, with roaring like ten thousand bears. Nothing could be done but to throw back more Hayakwa. Following each sacrifice came another lull, followed in turn by more terrible outbreaks, and so, string by string, he parted with all his gains. Then he sank to the ground insensible. When he awoke he lay under an Arbutus tree in a meadow of camas. He was shockingly stiff, and every movement pained him. But he managed to gather and smoke some dry Arbutus leaves and eat a few camas-bulbs. He was astonished, to find his hair very long and matted, and himself bent in feeble. Tamanous he muttered. Nevertheless he was calm and happy. Strangely he did not regret his lost strings of Hayakwa. Fear was gone, and his heart was filled with love. Slowly and painfully he made his way home. Everything was strangely altered. Ancient trees grew where shrubs had grown four days before, cedars under whose shade he used to sleep, lay rotting on the ground. Where his lodge had stood, now he saw a new and handsome lodge, and presently out of it came a very old decrepit squaw, who nevertheless, through her wrinkles, had a look that seemed strangely familiar to him. Her shoulders were hung thick, with Hayakwa strings. She bent over a pot of boiling salmon and crooned. My old man has gone, gone, gone. My old man to Tacoma has gone, to hunt the elk he went long ago. When will he come down, down, down, to salmon-pot and me? He has come down, quavered the return traveller, at last recognizing his wife. He asked no questions, charging it all to the wrath of Tamanous. He accepted fate as he found it. After all it was a happy fate enough in the end, for the old man became the great medicine man of his tribe, by whom he was greatly revered. The name of this Van Winkle of Mount Rainier is not mentioned in Mr. Winthrop's narrative. End of Part 13 Part 14 of the Book of the National Parks This LibriVox recording is in the Public Domain The Book of the National Parks by Robert Stirling Yard Crater Lakes Bowl of Indigo Crater Lake National Park, southwestern Oregon, area 249 square miles Crater Lake is in southwestern Oregon, among the Cascade Mountains, and is reached by an automobile ride of several hours from Medford. The government information circular calls it quote the deepest and bluest lake in the world, unquote, advertising circulars praise it in choices professional phrase. Its beauty is described as exceeding that of any other lake in all the world. Never was blue so wonderful as the blue of these waters. Never were waters so deep as its two thousand feet. Lord by this eloquence the traveller goes to Crater Lake and finds it all as promised. In fact, far better than promised. For the best intended adjectives, even when winged by the energetic pen of the most talented ad writer, cannot begin to convey the glowing, changing, mysterious loveliness of this lake of unbelievable beauty. In fact, the tourist, with expectation at fever heat by the time he steps from the autostage upon the crater rim, is silenced as much by astonishment as by admiration. Before him lies a crater of pale pearly lava several miles in diameter. A thousand feet below its rim is a lake whose farthest blues vie in delicacy with the horizon lavas, and deepen as they approach till at his feet they turn to almost black. There is nothing with which to compare the nearby blue looks sharply down upon from craters rim. The deepest indigo is nearest its intensity, but at certain angles falls far short. Nor is it only the color which affects him so strongly. Its kind is something new, startling, and altogether lovely. Its surface, so magically framed and tinted, is broken by fleeting silver wind streaks here and there. Otherwise, it has the vast stillness which we associate with the Grand Canyon and the sky at night. The lava walls are pearly, faintly blue afar off, graying and dobbled with many colors nearby. Pinks, purples, brick reds, sulfurs, orange yellows, and many intermediates streak and splash the foreground gray. And often pine-green forests fringe the rim and funnel down sharply-tilted canyons to the water's edge, and sometimes shrubs of livelier green find foothold on the gentler slopes, and spreading paint-bright patches. Overall, shutting down and around it like a giant bull, is the sky of Californian blue overhead, softening to the pearl of the horizon, a wonder spectacle indeed. And then our tourist, recovering from his trance, walks upon the rim and descends the trail to the water's edge to join a launch party around the lake. Here he finds a new and different experience, which is quite as sensational as that of his original discovery. Seen close by from the lake's surface, these tinted lava cliffs are carved as grotesquely as a Japanese ivory. Precipices rise at times two thousand feet, sheer as a wall. Elsewhere, gentle slopes of powdery lava, moss tinted, connect rim and water with a ruler line. And between these two extremes are found every fashion and kind and degree of lava wall, many of them precipitous, most of them rugged, all of them contorted and carved in the most fantastic manner that imagination can picture. Caves open their dark doors at the water's edge. Towered rocks emerge from submerged reefs. A mimic volcano rises from the water near one side. Perpetual snow fills sheltered crevices in the southern rim. And all this wonder is reflected, upside down, in the still mirror through which the launch plows its rapid way. But looking backward where the inverted picture is broken and tossed by the waves from the launch's prow, he looks upon a kaleidoscope of color, which he will remember all his life, for to the gorgeous disarray of the broken image of the cliffs is added the magic tint of this deep-dyed water, every wavelet of which, at its crest, seems touched for the fraction of a second with a flash of indigo, the whole dancing, sparkling, shimmering in a glory which words cannot convey. And on the other side, and far astern, the subsiding waves calming back to normal in a flare of robin's egg blue. Our tourist returns to the rimside hotel to the ceremony of sunset on Crater Lake, for which the lake abandons all traditions and clothes itself in gold and crimson. And in the morning, after looking before sunrise upon a Crater Lake of hard polished steel from which a falling rock would surely bounce and bound away as if on ice, he breakfasts and leaves without another look, lest repetition dull his priceless memory of an emotional experience which, all in all, can never come again the same. It is as impossible to describe Crater Lake as it is to paint it. Its outlines may be photographed, but the photograph does not tell the story. Its colors may be reproduced, but the reproduction is not Crater Lake. More than any other spot I know, except the Grand Canyon from its rim, Crater Lake seems to convey a glory which is not of line or mass or color or composition. But which seems to be of the spirit. No doubt this vivid impression which the stilled observer seems to acquire with his mortal eye is born somehow of his own emotion. Somehow he finds himself in communion with the infinite. Perhaps it is this quality which seems so mysterious that made the Klamath Indians fear and shun Crater Lake, just as the Indians of the Great Plateau feared and shun the Grand Canyon. It is this intangible, seemingly spiritual quality which makes the lake impossible either to paint or to describe. So different is this spectacle from anything else upon the Continent that the first question asked usually is how it came to be. The answer discloses one of the most dramatic incidents in the history of the earth. In the evolution of the Cascades many have been the misadventures of volcanoes. Some have been buried alive in ash and lava and merged into conquering rivals. Some have been buried in ice which now, organized as glaciers, is wearing down their sides. Some have died of starvation and passed into the hills. Some have been blown to atoms. Only one in America, so far as known, has returned into the seething gulf which gave it birth. That was Mount Mazama. The processes of creation are too deliberate for human comprehension. The Mississippi takes five thousand years to lower one inch its valley surface. The making of Glacier National Park required many, perhaps hundreds of millions of years. It seems probable that the cataclysm in which Mount Mazama disappeared was exceptional. Death may have come suddenly, even as expressed in human terms. What happened seems to have been this. Some foundation underpinning gave way in the molten gulf below, and the vast mountains sank and disappeared within itself. Imagine the spectacle. Who can? Mount Mazama left a clean, cut rim surrounding the hole through which it slipped and vanished. But there was a surging back. The eruptive forces rebounding pushed the shapeless mass again up the vast chimney. They found it too heavy a load. Deep within the ash-choked vent burst three small craters, and that was all. Two of these probably were short-lived. The third lasted a little longer, and centuries later spring water seeped through, creating Crater Lake. Crater Lake is set in the summit of the Cascade Range, about sixty-five miles north of the California boundary. The road from the railway station at Medford leads eighty miles eastward up the picturesque volcanic valley of the Rogue River. The country is magnificently forested. The mountains at this point are broad, gently rolling plateaus, from which suddenly rise many volcanic cones, which seen from elevated opens, are picturesque in the extreme. Each of these cones is the top of a volcano from whose summit has streamed the prehistoric floods of lava which have filled the intervening valleys, raising and leveling the country. Entering the park a high broad forested elevation is quickly encountered, which looks at a glance exactly what it is, the base which once supported a towering cone. At its summit this swelling base is found to be the outside supporting wall of a roughly circular lake, about five miles in diameter, the inside wall of which is steeply inclined to the water's surface, a thousand feet below. The strong contrast between the outer and inner walls tells a plainly red story. The outer walls all around slope gently upward at an angle of about fifteen degrees, naturally if carried on they would converge in a peak summit higher than that of Shasta. The inner walls converge downward at a steep angle, suggesting a funnel of enormous depth. It was through this funnel that Mount Mazama, as men called the volcano that man never saw, once collapsed into the gulf from which it had emerged. Studying the scene from the lodge on the rim where the automobile stage has left you, the most vivid impressions of detail are those of the conformation of the inner rim, the cliffs which rise above it, and the small volcano which emerges from the blue waters of the lake. The marvelous inner slope of the rim is not a continuous cliff, but a highly diversified succession of strata. Examination shows the layer of volcanic conglomerate and lava of which, like layers of brick and stone, the great structure was built. The downward dip of these strata away from the lake is everywhere discernible. The volcano's early story thus lies plain to eyestrain to read it. The most interesting of these strata is the lava flow which forms 12,000 feet of the total precipice of Leo Rock, a prominence of conspicuous beauty. Many of these cliffs are magnificently bold. The loftiest is Glacier Peak which rises almost 2,000 feet above the water's surface, but Dutton Cliff is a close rival, and Vd Cliff, Garfield Peak, Leo Rock, and the Watchmen fall close behind. Offsetting these are breaks where the rim drops within 600 feet of the water. The statement of a wall height of 1,000 feet expresses the general impression, though as an average it is probably well short of the fact. At the foot of all the walls, at water's edge, lie slopes of talus, the rocky fragments which erosion has broken loose and dropped into the abyss. Nowhere is there a beach. The talus shallows the water for a few hundred feet, and descending streams build small deltas. These shallows edge the intense blue of the depths with exquisite lighter tints which tend to green, but this edging is very narrow. The next most striking object after the gigantic carven cliffs is Wizard Island. This complete volcano in miniature, notwithstanding that it is forest clothed and rises from the water, carries the traveler's mind instantly to the thirteen similar cones which rise within the enormous desert crater of dead Haleakala in the Hawaii National Park. Wizard Island's crater may easily be seen in the tip of its cone. Its two fellow volcanoes are invisible four hundred feet under the water. Scanning the blue surface, one's eye is caught by an interesting sail-like rock rising from the waters on the far right close to the foot of Dutton Cliff. This is the phantom ship. Seen two miles away in certain lights, the illusion is excellent. The mass seemed to tilt rickishly and the sails shine in the sun. There are times when the phantom ship suddenly disappears, and times again when it as suddenly appears where nothing was before. Hence its name and mysterious repute. But there is nothing really mysterious about this ghostly behavior, which occurs only when the heated atmosphere lends itself readily to mirage. Days and weeks of rare pleasure may be had in the exploration of these amazing walls. A pleasure greatly to be enhanced by discovering and studying the many plain evidences of Mazama's slow upbuilding and sudden extinction. The excellent automobile road around the rim affords easy approach afoot, as well as by automobile and bicycle. Its passage is enlivened by many inspiring views of the outlying cascades with their great forests of yellow pine and their lesser volcanic cones, some of which, within and without the park boundaries, hung upon the flanks of Mt. Mazama while it was belching flame and ash, while others, easing the checked pressure following the great catastrophe, were formed anew or enlarged from older vents. From this road any part of the fantastic rim may be reached and explored, often to the water's edge, by adventurous climbers. What more enjoyable days outing, for instance, than the exploration of the splendid pile of pentagonal basaltic columns suspended halfway in the rim at one point of picturesque beauty. What more inspiring than the climbing of Dutton Cliff, or for experienced climbers, of many of the striking lava spires. The only drawback to these days of happy wandering along this sculptured and painted rim is the necessity of carrying drinking water from the lodge. Then there are days of pleasure on the water. Wizard Island may be thoroughly explored, with luncheon under its trees by the lakeside. The phantom ship's gnarled lavas may be examined and climbed. Everywhere the steep rocky shore invites more intimate acquaintance. Its caves may be entered, some afoot, at least one afloat. The lake is well stocked with rainbow trout, some of them descendants of the youngsters which Will G. Steele laboriously carried across country from Gordon's Ranch, forty-nine miles away, in 1888. They are caught with the fly from shore and boat. A pound trout in Crater Lake is a small trout. Occasionally a monster of eight or ten pounds is carried up the trail to the lodge. During all these days and weeks of pleasure and study, the vision of ancient Mount Mazama and its terrible end grows more and more in the enlightened imagination. There is much in the confirmation of the base to justify a rather definite picture of this lost brother of Hood, Shasta, St. Helens, and Reneer. At the climax of his career, Mazama probably rose sixteen thousand feet above the sea, which means ten thousand feet above the level of the present lake. We are justified too in imagining his end a cataclysm. Volcanic upbuildings are so often spasmodic and slow, a series of impulses separated by centuries of quiescence. But their climaxes often are sudden and excessively violent. It seems more probable that Mazama collapsed during violent eruption, perhaps like a stroke of lightning at the moment of triumph. Death came at the supreme climax of his career. Certainly no mausoleum was ever conceived for human hero, which may be compared for a moment with this glorified grave of dead Mazama. The human history of Crater Lake has its interest. The Indians feared it. John W. Hillman was the first white man to see it. Early in 1853 a party of Californian miners ascended the Rogue River to rediscover a lost gold mine of fabulous richness. The expedition was secret. But several Oregonians who suspected its object and meant to be in at the finding quickly organized and followed. Hillman was of this party. The Californians soon learned of the pursuit. Then wrote Hillman, half a century later, it was a game of hide and seek, until rations on both sides got low. The Californians would push through the brush, scatter, double backward on their trail, and then camp in the most inaccessible places to be found, and it sometimes puzzled us to locate and camp near enough to watch them. Eventually the rivals united. A combination search party was chosen, which included Hillman. And this party, while it found no gold mine, found Crater Lake. While riding up a long sloping mountain, Hillman continued, we suddenly came inside of water and were very much surprised as we did not expect to see any lakes. We did not know, but what we had come in sight and close to Klamath Lake, and not until my mule stop was in a few feet of the rim of Crater Lake did I look down, and if I had been riding a blind mule, I firmly believe I would have ridden over the edge to death and destruction. The finding of Crater Lake, he concludes, was an accident, as we were not looking for lakes, but the fact of my being the first upon its banks was due to the fact that I was riding the best saddle mule in southern Oregon, the property of Jimmy Dobson, a miner and packer with headquarters at Jacksonville, who had furnished me the mule in consideration of a claim to be taken in his name should we be successful. Stranger to me than our discovery was the fact that after our return I could get no acknowledgement from any Indian, buck or squaw, old or young, that any such lake existed, each and every one denied any knowledge of it, or ignored the subject completely. The next development in Crater's history introduces Will G. Steele, widely known as the father of Crater Lake National Park, a pioneer of the highest type, a gold seeker in the coast ranges and the Klondike, a school teacher for many years, and a public spirited enthusiast. In 1869, a farmer's boy in Kansas, he read a newspaper account of an Oregon lake with precipice sides five thousand feet deep. Moving to Oregon in 1871, he kept making inquiries for seven years before he verified the fact of the lake's existence, and it was two years later before he found a man who had seen it. This man's description decided him to visit it, then an undertaking of some difficulty. He got there in 1885. Standing on the rim he suggested to Professor Joseph Lacan that an effort be made to induce the national government to save it from defacement and private exploitation. Returning home they prepared a petition to President Cleveland, who promptly withdrew ten townships from settlement pending a bill before Congress to create a national park. Congress refused to pass the bill on the ground that Oregon should protect her own lake. Then Steele began an effort, or rather an unbroken succession of efforts, to interest Congress. For seventeen years he agitated the project at home, where he made speeches winter and summer all over the state and at Washington, which he deluged with letters and circulars. Finally the bill was passed. Crater Lake became a national park on May 22, 1902. Mr. Steele's work was not finished. He now began just as vigorous a campaign to have the lake properly stocked with trout. It required years but succeeded. Then he began a campaign for funds to build a road to the lake. This was a stubborn struggle which carried him to Washington for a winter, but it finally succeeded. During most of this time Mr. Steele was a country school teacher without other personal income than his salary. He spent many of his summers talking Crater Lake projects to audiences in every part of the state, depending upon his many friends for entertainment and for lifts from town to town. He was superintendent of the park from 1913 to the winter of 1920, when he became United States commissioner for the park. The attitude of the Indians toward Crater Lake remains to be told. Steele is authority for the statement that previous to 1886 no modern Indian had looked upon its waters. Legends inherited from their ancestors made them greatly fear it. I quote O. C. Applegate's Claymouth's Legend of Leo from Steel Points for January 1907. According to the mythology of the Claymouth and Modak Indians, the chief spirit who occupied the mystic land of Gaywas or Crater Lake was Leo. Under his control were many lesser spirits who appeared to be able to change their forms at will. Many of these were monsters of various kinds, among them the giant crawfish or dragon who could, if he chose, reach up his mighty arms even to the tops of the cliffs and drag down to the cold depths of Crater Lake any to venture some tourist of the primal days. The spirits or beings who were under the control of Leo assumed the forms of many animals of the present day when they chose to go abroad on dry land. And this was no less true of the other fabulous inhabitants of Claymouth land who were dominated by other chief spirits and who occupied separate localities. All these forms, however, were largely or solely subject to the will of Kamukumps, the Great Spirit. Now on the north side of Mount Jackson, or Leo Jena, Leo's Mountain, the eastern escarpment of which is known as Leo Rock, is a smooth field sloping a little toward the north, which was a common playground for the fabled inhabitants of Gaywas and neighboring communities. Skel was a mighty spirit whose realm was the Claymouth Marsh Country, his capital being near the Yamsey River on the eastern side of the Marsh. He had many subjects who took the form of birds and beasts when abroad on the land, as the Antelope, the Bald Eagle, the Blewas, or Golden Eagle. Among them many of the most sagacious and active of all the beings then upon the earth. A fierce war occurred between Skel and Leo and their followers, which raged for a long time. Finally Skel was stricken down in his own land of Yamsey, and his heart was torn from his body and was carried in triumph to Leo Jena. Then a great gala day was declared and even the followers of Skel were allowed to take part in the games on Mount Jackson, and the heart of Skel was tossed from hand to hand in the great ball game in which all participated. If the heart of Skel could be borne away so that it could be restored to his body he would live again, and so with a secret understanding among themselves the followers of Skel watched for the opportunity to bear it away. Eventually when it reached the hands of Antelope he sped away to the eastward like the wind. When nearly exhausted he passed it to Eagle and he interned to Blewas and so on, and although Leo's followers pursued with their utmost speed they failed to overtake the swift bearers of the precious heart. At last they heard the faraway voice of the dove, another of Skel's people, and then they gave up the useless pursuit. Skel's heart was restored and he lived again, but the war was not over and finally Leo was himself overpowered and slain and his bleeding body was borne to the Leo Jena on the very verge of the great cliff, and a false message was conveyed to Leo's monsters in the lake that Skel had been killed instead of Leo, and when a quarter of the body was thrown over Leo's monsters devoured it thinking it a part of Skel's body. Each quarter was thrown over in turn with the same result. But when the head was thrown into the lake the monsters recognized it as the head of their master and would not touch it, and so it remains today an island in the lake to all people now known as Wizard Island. In 1885 at Fort Clamath Steele obtained from Alan David the white-headed chief of the Clamath Indians the story of how the Indians returned to Crater Lake. It was long before the white men appeared to drive the native out. Several Clamaths while hunting were shocked to find themselves on the lake rim, but gazing upon its beauty suddenly it was revealed to them that this was the home of the Great Spirit. They silently left and camped far away, but one brave under the spell of the lake returned, looked again, built his campfire and slept. The next night he returned again and still again. Each night strange voices which charmed him rose from the lake, mysterious noises filled the air, moons waxed and wane. One day he climbed down to the water's edge where he saw creatures like in all respects to Clamath Indians inhabiting the waters. Again and again he descended, bathed and soon began to feel mysteriously strong, stronger than any Indian of his tribe because of his many visits to the waters. Others perceiving his growing power ventured also to visit the lake and upon bathing in its waters also received strength. On one occasion said David solemnly the brave who first visited the lake killed a monster or fish and was at once set upon by untold numbers of excited Laos for such they were called, who carried him to the top of the cliffs, cut his throat with a stone knife, then tore his body into small pieces which were thrown down to the waters far beneath and devoured by angry Laos. In 1886 two Clamaths accompanied Captain Clarence E. Dutton's Geological Survey Party to Crater Lake and ascended to the water's edge. The news of the successful adventure spread among the Indians and others came to look upon the forbidden spot. That was the beginning of the end of the superstition. Steele says that two hundred Clamaths camped upon the rim in 1896 while he was there with the Mazamas. The lake was variously named by its early visitors. The Hillman Party which discovered it named it Deep Blue Lake on the spot. Later it was known as Lake Mystery, Lake Majesty and Hole in the Ground. A party from Jacksonville named it Crater Lake on August 4, 1869. End of Part 14. Part 15 of the Book of the National Parks. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Book of the National Parks by Robert Stirlingyard. Yellowstone, a volcanic interlude. Wyoming, Northwestern Wyoming, area 3,348 square miles. 1. John Coulter's story of hot springs at the upper waters of the Yellowstone River was laughed at by the public of 1810. Jim Bridger's account of the geysers in the 30s made his national reputation as a liar. Warren Angus Ferris' description of the upper geyser basin was received in 1842 in unbelieving silence. Later explorers who sought the Yellowstone to test the truth of these tales thought it wholesome to keep their findings to themselves as magazines and newspapers refused to publish their accounts and lecturers were stoned in the streets as imposters. It required the authority of the semi-official Washburn-Langford expedition of 1869 to establish credence. The original appeal of the Yellowstone, that to wonder, remains its most popular appeal today, though science has dissipated mystery these many years. Many visitors, I am persuaded, enjoy the wonder of it more even than the spectacle. I have heard people refuse to listen to the explanation of geyser action, lest it lessen their pleasure in old faithful. I confess to moods in which I want to see the blue flames and smell the brimstone which Jim Bridger describes so eloquently. There are places where it is not hard to imagine both. For many years the uncanny wonders of a dying volcanic region absorbed the public mind to the exclusion of all else in the Yellowstone neighborhood which Congress, principally in consequence of these wonders, made a national park in 1872. Yet all the time it possessed two other elements of distinction which a later period regards as equal to the volcanic phenomena, elements in fact of such distinction that either one alone, without the geysers, would have warranted the reservation of so striking a region for a national park. One of these is the Valley of the Yellowstone River, with its spectacular waterfalls and its colorful canyon. The other is its population of wild animals which, in 1872, probably was as large and may have been larger than today's. Yet little was heard of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in those days, although Moran's celebrated painting, now in the capital at Washington, helped influence Congress to make it a national park, and so little did the wild animals figure in the calculations of the period that they were not even protected in the national park, until 1894 when hunting had reduced the buffalo to twenty-five animals. Even in these days of enlightenment and appreciation, the great majority of people think of the Yellowstone only as an area in closing geysers. There are tourists so possessed with this idea that they barely glance at the canyon in passing. I have heard tourists refuse to walk to Inspiration Point, because they had already looked over the rim at a convenient and unimpressive place. Imagine coming two thousand miles to Bok at two miles and a half to the only spectacle of its kind in the world, and one of the world's great spectacles at that. As for the animals, few indeed see any, but the occasional bears that feed at the hotel dumps in the evening. The Yellowstone National Park lies in the recesses of the Rocky Mountains in northwestern Wyoming. It slightly overlaps Montana on the north and northwest, and Idaho on the southwest. It is rectangular, with an entrance about the middle of each side. It is the largest of the national parks, in closing three thousand three hundred forty-eight square miles. It occupies a high plain, girt with mountains. The Absarocas bounded on the east, their crest invading the park at Mount Chittenden. The Galantan Range pushes into the northwestern corner from the north. The continental divide crosses the southwestern corner over the lofty Madison Plateau and the ridge south of Yellowstone Lake. Altitudes are generally high. The plains range from six to eight thousand feet. The mountains rise occasionally to ten thousand feet. South of the park, the Pitchton Plateau merges into the foothills of the Teton Mountains, which thirty miles south of the southern boundary rise precipitously seven thousand feet above the general level of the country. Though occupying the heart of the Rocky Mountains, the region is not of them. In no sense is it typical. The Rockies are essentially granite, which was forced molten from the depths when, at the creation of this vast central mountain system, lateral pressures lifted the earth's skin high above sea level, folded it, and finally eroded it along the crest of the folds. In this granite system, the Yellowstone is a volcanic interlude, and of much later date. It belongs in a general way to the impulse of volcanic agitation, which lighted vast beacons over three hundred thousand square miles of our northwest. The Cascade Mountains belong in this grouping. Four national parks of today were then in the making. Mount Rainier in Washington, Crater Lake in Oregon, Lassen Volcanic in California, and the Yellowstone in Wyoming. Subterranean heat, remaining from those days of volcanic activity, today boils the water which the geysers hurl in air. In the northeastern part of the Yellowstone, a large central crater was surrounded by smaller volcanoes. You can easily trace the confirmation from Mount Washburn, which stood upon its southeastern rim, heaped there doubtless by some explosion of more than common violence. This volcanic period was of long duration, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. In the northeastern part of the park, the erosion of a hill has exposed the petrified remains of thirteen large forests in layers one on top of the other, the deep intervening spaces filled with thick deposits of ashes. Thirteen consecutive times were great forests here smothered in the products of eruption. Thirteen times did years enough elapse between eruptions for soil to make and forest to grow again, each perhaps of many generations of great trees. Yellowstone's mountains, then, are decayed volcanoes. Its rock is lava. Its soil is ash and disintegrated lava. The resulting outline is soft and waving, with a tendency to levels. There are no pinnacle tights, no stratified, minute-readed walls, no precipice-circs, and glacier-shrouded peaks. Yet glaciers visited the region, the large granite boulder brought from afar and left near the west rim of the Grand Canyon, with thousands of feet of real light, and other products of volcanism beneath it is alone sufficient proof of that. Between the periods from volcano to glacier, and from glacier to today, stream erosion has performed its miracles. The volcanoes have been rounded and flattened, the plateaus have been built up and leveled, and the canyons of the Yellowstone, Gibbon, and Madison rivers have been dug. Vigorous as its landscape still remains, it has thus become the natural playground for a multitude of people unaccustomed to the rigors of a powerfully accented mountain country. The fact is that, in spite of its poverty of peaks and precipices, the Yellowstone country is one of the most varied and beautiful wildernesses in the world. Among national parks, it gains rather than loses by its difference. While easily penetrated, it is wild in the extreme, hinting of the prairies in its broad opens, pasture for thousands of wild ruminants, and of the loftier mountains in its distant ranges, its isolated peaks, and its groups of rugged rolling summits. In the number, magnitude, and variety of its waters, it stands quite alone. It contains no less than three watersheds of importance, those of the Yellowstone, Madison, and Snake rivers, flowing respectively north, west, and south. The waters of the Yellowstone and Madison make it an important source of the Missouri. There are minor rivers of importance in the park and innumerable lesser streams. It is a network of waterways. Its waterfalls are many, and two of them are large and important. Its lakes are many, and several are large. Yellowstone Lake is the largest of its altitude in the world. As a wilderness, therefore, the Yellowstone is unequaled. Its innumerable waters ensure the luxuriance of its growths. Its forested parts are densely forested, its flower gardens are unexceled in range, color, and variety, and its meadows grow deep in many kinds of rich grass. If it were only for the splendor of its wilderness, it still would be worth the while. Imagine this wilderness, heavily populated with friendly wild animals, sprinkled with geysers, hot springs, mud volcanoes, painted terraces, and petrified groves, sensational with breathtaking canyons and waterfalls, penetrable over hundreds of miles of well-built road and several times the mileage of trails, and comfortable because of its large hotels and public camps, located conveniently for its enjoyment, and you have a pleasure ground of extraordinary quality. Remember that one may camp out almost anywhere, and that all waters are trout waters. Yellowstone offers the best fishing easily accessible in the continent. Another advantage possessed by the Yellowstone is a position near the center of the country among great railroad systems. The northern Pacific reaches it on the north, the Burlington on the east, and the Union Pacific on the west. One can take it coming or going between oceans. It is possible to buy tickets in by any one railroad and out by either of the others. An elaborate system of automobile coaches swings the passenger where he pleases, meeting all incoming trains and delivering at all outgoing trains. It is much easier now to see the Yellowstone than in the much-vaunted stagecoach times previous to 1915, times solely lamented by the Romantic because their passing meant the passing of the picturesque old horse-drawn stagecoach from its last stand in the United States. Times when a tour of the Yellowstone meant six and a half days of slow, dusty travel, starting early and arriving late, with a few minutes or hours at each site for the soiled and exhausted traveler to gape in ignorant wonder watch in hand. Today one travels swiftly and comfortably in entire leisure, stopping at hotels or camps as he pleases and staying at each as long as he likes. The runs between the lingering places are now a pleasure. If hurried, one can now accomplish the stagecoach trip of the past in two days, while the old six and a half days now means a leisurely and delightful visit. With the new order of travel began a new conception of the Yellowstone's public usefulness. It ceased to be a museum of wonders and began to be a summer pleasure ground. Instead of the fast automobile stage decreasing the average length of visit, the new idea which it embodied has lengthened it. This new idea is a natural evolution, which began with the automobile and spread rapidly. The railroads have been bringing tourists principally on transcontinental stopovers. Automobiles brought people who came really to see the Yellowstone, who stayed weeks at public camps to see it, or who brought outfits and camped out among its spectacles. The first Ford which entered the park on the morning of August 1st, 1915, the day when private cars were first admitted, so loaded with tenting and cooking utensils that the occupants scarcely could be seen, was the herald of the new and greater Yellowstone. Those who laughed and those who groaned at the sight of it, and there were both, were no seers. For that minute Yellowstone entered upon her destiny. The road scheme is simple and effective. From each entrance a road leads into an oblong loop road enclosing the center of the park and touching the principal points of scenic interest. This loop is connected across the middle for convenience. From it several short roads push out to special spectacles, and a long road follows Lamar Creek through a northeastern entrance to a mining town which has no other means of communication with the world outside. This is the road to Specimen Ridge with its 13 engulfed forest, to the Buffalo Range, and outside the park boundaries to the Grasshopper Glacier in whose glassy embrace may be seen millions of grasshoppers which have lain in very cold storage indeed from an age before man. All are automobile roads. 2. The hot water phenomena are scattered over a large area of the park. The mammoth hot springs at the northern entrance are the only active example of a high terrace building. The geysers are concentrated in three adjoining groups upon the middle west side, but hot springs occur everywhere at widely separated points. A steam jet is seen emerging even from the depths of the Grand Canyon, a thousand feet below the rim. The traveler is never long allowed to forget, in the silent beauty of the supreme wilderness, the park's uncanny nature, suddenly encountered columns of steam rising from innocent meadows, occasional half acres of dead and discolored brush emerging from hot and yellow mud-holes within the glowing forest heart, an unexpected roaring hillside running with smoking water, irregular agitated pools of gray, pink, or yellow mud, spitting like a pot of porridge, explosive puffs of steam, the warm vaporing of a shallow in a cold forest-bound lake, a continuous violent bellowing from the depths of a ragged roadside hole which at intervals vomits noisily quantities of thick brown and purple liquid, occasional groups of richly colored hot springs in an acre or more of dull yellows, the hull steaming vehemently and interchanging the pinks and blues of its hot waters as the passing traveler changes his angle of vision. These and other uncouth phenomena in wide variety and frequent repetition enliven the tourist's way. They are more numerous in geyser neighborhoods, but some of them are met singly always with a little shock of surprise in every part of the park. The terrace building springs in the north of the park in gulf trees. The bulky, growing mounds of white and gray deposit are edged with minutely carbon basins mounted upon elaborately fluted supports of ornate design over whose many colored edges flows a shimmer of hot water. Basin rises upon basin, tear upon tear, each in turn destined to clog and dry, and merge into the mass while new basins and new tears form and grow awhile upon their outer flank. The material, of course, is precipitated by the water when it emerges from the earth's hot interior. The vivid yellows and pinks and blues in which these terraces clothe themselves upon warm days result from minute vegetable algae which thrive in the hot, saturated lime water but quickly die and fade to gray and shining white on drying. The height of some of these shapeless masses of terrace-built structures is surprising, but more surprising yet is the vividness of color assumed by the limpid springs in certain lights and at certain angles. Climbing the terraces at the expense of wet feet one stands upon broad, white, and occasionally very damp plateaus which steam vigorously in spots. These spots are irregularly circular and very shallow pools of hot water, some of which bubble industriously with a low, pleasant hum. They are not boiling springs, the bubbling is caused by escaping gases, but their waters are extremely hot. The intense color of some of these pools varies or disappears with the changing angle of vision, the water itself is limpid. Elsewhere throughout the park the innumerable hot springs seem to be less charged with depositable matter, elsewhere they build no terraces, but bubble joyously up through bowls often many feet in depth and diameter. Often they are inspiringly beautiful, the blue morning glory spring is jewel-like rather than flower-like in its color quality, but its bowl remarkably resembles the flower which gives it name. Most springs are gloriously green, some are the sources of considerable streams, some stir slightly with the feeling rather than the appearance of life, others are perpetually agitated, several small springs betraying their relationship to the geysers, by a periodicity of activity. When the air is dry and the temperature low, the springs shoot thick volumes of steam high in the air. To the innumer by the north or west entrance, who has yet to see a geyser, the first view of the lower geyser basin gives a shock of astonishment, no matter what his expectation. Let us hope it is a cool, bracing, breezy morning when the broad yellow plain emits hundreds of columns of heavy steam to unite in a wind toss cloud overlying and settling on the uncanny spectacle. Several geysers spout vehemently, and one or more roaring vents bellow like angry bulls in a nightmare. This is appropriately the introduction to the greater geyser basins which lie nearby upon the south. Who shall describe the geysers? What pen, what brush, shall do justice to their ghostly glory, the eager vehemence of their assaults upon the sky, their joyful gush and roar, their insistence upon conscious personality and power, the white majesty of their fluted columns at the instant of fullest expansion, the supreme loveliness of their feathery fluorescence at the level of poise between rise and fall, their graciousness of form, their speedy airiness of action, their giant convolutions of sun-flexed steam rolling aloft in ever-expanding volume to rejoin the parent cloud. Perhaps there have been greater geyser basins somewhere in the prehistoric past. There may be greater still to come. One or two promising possibilities are in Alaska. But for the lapse of geologic time in which man has so far lived, Yellowstone has cornered the world's geyser market. There are only two other places where one may enjoy the spectacle of large geysers. One of these is New Zealand and the other Iceland, but both displays combined cannot equal Yellowstones either in the number or the size of the geysers. Yellowstone has dozens of geysers of many kinds. They range in size from the little spring that spurts a few inches every minute to the monster that hurls hundreds of tons of water, three hundred feet in the air, every six or eight weeks. Many spout at regular intervals of minutes or hours or days. Others are notably irregular, and these include most of the largest. Old Faithful won its name in reputation by its regularity. It is the only one of the group of monsters which lives up to its timetable. Its period ranges from intervals of about fifty-five minutes in seasons following winters of heavy snow to eighty or eighty-five minutes in seasons following winters of light snow. Its eruptions are announced in the Old Faithful Inn a few minutes in advance of action, and the population of the hotel walks out to see the spouting. At night a searchlight is thrown upon the gushing flood. After all, Old Faithful is the most satisfactory of geysers. Several are more imposing, sometimes enthusiasts remain in the neighborhood for weeks, waiting for the giant to play, and dare not venture far away for fear of missing the spectacle, while Old Faithful, which is quite as beautiful and nearly as large, performs hourly for the pleasure of thousands, even the most hurried visitor to the upper basin is sure between stages of seeing several geysers in addition to one or more performances of Old Faithful. The greatest of known geysers ceased playing in 1888. I have found no authentic measurements or other stated records concerning the famous Excelsior. It hurled aloft an enormous volume of water, with a fury of action described as appalling. Posterity is fortunate in the existence of a striking photograph of this monster, taken at the height of its play by F. J. Haynes, then official photographer of the park. The first photographs I made were in the fall of 1881, Mr. Haynes writes me. The eruptions continued during the winter at increasing intervals from two hours, when the series began, to four hours when it ceased operations before the tourist season of 1882. Not having the modern photographic plates for instantaneous work in 1881, it was impossible to secure instantaneous views then. But in the spring of 1888, I made the view which you write about. It was taken at the fullness of its eruption. The explosion was preceded by a rapid filling of the crater and a great overflow of water. The column was about fifty feet wide and came from the center of the crater. Pieces of formation were torn loose and were thrown out during each eruption. Large quantities eventually were removed from the crater, thus enlarging it to its present size. Here we have a witness's description of the process which clouds the career of the Excelsior geyser. The enlargement of the vent eventually gave unrestrained passage to the imprisoned steam the geyser ceased to play. Today the Excelsior spring is one of the largest hot springs in the Yellowstone and the world. Its output of steaming water is constant and voluminous. Thus again we find relationship between the hot spring and the geyser. It is apparent that the same vent, except perhaps for differences of internal shaping, might serve for both. It was the removal of restraining walls, which changed the Excelsior geyser to the Excelsior spring. For many years geyser action remained a mystery, balanced among conflicting theories, of which at last, Bunsen's one general acceptance. Spring waters or surface waters seeping through porous lavas gather thousands of feet below the surface in some pocket located in Strada, which internal pressures still keep hot. Boiling as they gather, the waters rise till they fill the long vent hole to the surface. Still the steam keeps making in the deep pocket, where it is held down by the weight of the water in the vent above. As it accumulates, this steam compresses more and more. The result is inevitable. There comes a moment when the expansive power of the compressed steam overcomes the weight above. Explosion follows. The steam, expanding now with violence, drives the water up the vent and out, nor is it satisfied until the vent is emptied. Upon the surface, as the geyser lapses and dies, the people turn away to the inn and luncheon. Under the surface, again the waters gather and boil in preparation for the next eruption. The interval till then will depend upon the amount of water which reaches the deep pocket, the size of the pocket, and the length and shape of the vent hole. If conditions permit the upward escape of steam, as fast as it makes in the pocket, we have a hot spring. If the steam makes faster than it can escape, we have a geyser. End of Part 15