|
MOUNT SHASTA rises in
solitary grandeur from the edge of a comparatively low and lightly
sculptured lava plain near the northern extremity of the Sierra, and
maintains a far more impressive and commanding individuality than any other
mountain within the limits of California. Go where you may, within a radius
of from fifty to a hundred miles or more, there stands before you the
colossal cone of Shasta, clad in ice and snow, the one grand, unmistakable
landmark - the pole-star of the landscape. Far to the southward Mount
Whitney lifts its granite summit four or five hundred feet higher than
Shasta, but it is nearly snowless during the late summer, and is so feebly
individualized that the traveler may search for it in vain among the many
rival peaks crowded along the axis of the range to north and south of it,
which all alike are crumbling residual masses brought into relief in the
degradation of the general mass of the range. The highest point on Mount
Shasta, as determined by the State Geological Survey, is 14,440 feet above
mean tide. That of Whitney, computed from fewer observations, is about
149,00 feet. But inasmuch as the average elevation of the plain out of which
Shasta rises is only about four thousand feet above the sea, while the
actual base of the peak of Mount Whitney lies at an elevation of eleven
thousand feet, the individual height of the former is about two and a half
times as great as that of the latter.
Approaching Shasta from the
south, one obtains glimpses of its snowy cone here and there through the
trees from the tops of hills and ridges; but it is not until Strawberry
Valley is reached, where there is a grand out- opening of the forests, that
Shasta is seen in all its glory, from base to crown clearly revealed with
its wealth of woods and waters and fountain snow, rejoicing in the bright
mountain sky, and radiating beauty on all the subject landscape like a sun.
Standing in a fringing thicket of purple spira in the immediate foreground
is a smooth expanse of green meadow with its meandering stream, one of the
smaller affluents of the Sacramento; then a zone of dark, close forest, its
countless spires of pine and fir rising above one another on the swelling
base of the mountain in glorious array; and, over all, the great white cone
sweeping far into the thin, keen sky—meadow, forest, and grand icy summit
harmoniously blending and making one sublime picture evenly balanced.
The main lines of the
landscape are immensely bold and simple, and so regular that it needs all
its shaggy wealth of woods and chaparral and its finely tinted ice and snow
and brown jutting crags to keep it from looking conventional. In general
views of the moun- tain three distinct zones may be readily defined. The
first, which may be called the Chaparral Zone, extends around the base in a
magnificent sweep nearly a hundred miles in length on its lower edge, and
with a breadth of about seven miles. It is a dense growth of chaparral from
three to six or eight feet high, composed chiefly of manzanita, cherry,
chincapin, and several species of ceanothus, called deerbrush by the
hunters, forming, when in full bloom, one of the most glorious flower-beds
conceivable. The continuity of this flowery zone is interrupted here and
there, especially on the south side of the mountain, by wide swaths of
coniferous trees, chiefly the sugar and yellow pines, Douglas spruce, silver
fir, and incense cedar, many specimens of which are two hundred feet high
and five to seven feet in diameter. Goldenrods, asters, gilias, lilies, and
lupines, with many other less conspicuous plants, occur in warm sheltered
openings in these lower woods, making charming gardens of wildness where
bees and butterflies are at home and many a shy bird and squirrel.
The next higher is the Fir
Zone, made up almost exclusively of two species of silver fir. It is from
two to three miles wide, has an average elevation above the sea of some six
thousand feet on its lower edge and eight thousand on its upper, and is the
most regular and best defined of the three.
The Alpine Zone has a rugged,
straggling growth of storm-beaten dwarf pines (Pinus albicaulis), which
forms the upper edge of the timber-line. This species reaches an elevation
of about nine thousand feet, but at this height the tops of the trees rise
only a few feet into the thin frosty air, and are closely pressed and shorn
by wind and snow; yet they hold on bravely and put forth an abundance of
beautiful purple flowers and produce cones and seeds. Down towards the edge
of the fir belt they stand erect, forming small, well-formed trunks, and are
associated with the taller two- leafed and mountain pines and the beautiful
Williamson spruce. Bryanthus, a beautiful flowering heathwort, flourishes a
few hundred feet above the timber-line, accompanied with kalmia and spira.
Lichens enliven the faces of the cliffs with their bright colors, and in
some of the warmer nooks of the rocks, up to a height of eleven thousand
feet, there are a few tufts of dwarf daisies, wall-flowers, and penstemons;
but, notwithstanding these bloom freely, they make no appreciable show at a
distance, and the stretches of rough brown lava beyond the storm-beaten
trees seem as bare of vegetation as the great snow-fields and glaciers of
the summit.
Shasta is a fire-mountain, an
old volcano gradually accumulated and built up into the blue deep of the sky
by successive eruptions of ashes and molten lava which, shot high in the air
and falling in darkening showers, and flowing from chasms and craters, grew
outward and upward like the trunk of a knotty, bulging tree. Not in one
grand convulsion was Shasta given birth, nor in any one special period of
volcanic storm and stress, though mountains more than a thousand feet in
height have been cast up like mole-hills in a night - quick contributions to
the wealth of the landscapes, and most emphatic statements, on the part of
Nature, of the gigantic character of the power that dwells beneath the dull,
dead-looking surface of the earth. But sections cut by the glaciers,
displaying some of the internal framework of Shasta, show that comparatively
long periods of quiescence intervened between many distinct eruptions,
during which the cooling lavas ceased to flow, and took their places as
permanent additions to the bulk of the growing mountain. Thus with alternate
haste and deliberation eruption succeeded eruption, until Mount Shasta
surpassed even its present sublime height.
Then followed a strange
contrast. The glacial winter came on. The sky that so often had been
darkened with storms of cinders and ashes and lighted by the glare of
volcanic fires was filled with crystal snow-flowers, which, loading the
cooling mountain, gave birth to glaciers that, uniting edge to edge, at
length formed one grand conical glacier -a down- crawling mantle of ice upon
a fountain of smouldering fire, crushing and grinding its brown, flinty
lavas, and thus degrading and remodeling the entire mountain from summit to
base. How much denudation and degradation has been effected we have no means
of determining, the porous, crumbling rocks being ill adapted for the
reception and preservation of glacial inscriptions.
The summit is now a mass of
ruins, and all the finer striations have been effaced from the flanks by
post-glacial weathering, while the irregularity of its lavas as regards
susceptibility to erosion, and the disturbance caused by inter- and
post-glacial eruptions, have obscured or obliterated those heavier
characters of the glacial record found so clearly inscribed upon the granite
pages of the high Sierra between latitude 36° 30' and 39°. This much,
however, is plain: that the summit of the mountain was considerably lowered,
and the sides were deeply grooved and fluted while it was a center of
dispersal for the glaciers of the circumjacent region. And when at length
the glacial period began to draw near its close, the ice mantle was
gradually melted off around the base of the mountain, and in receding and
breaking up into its present fragmentary condition the irregular heaps and
rings of moraine matter were stored upon its flanks on which the forests are
growing. The glacial erosion of most of the Shasta lavas gives rise to
detritus composed of rough subangular boulders of moderate size and porous
gravel and sand, which yields freely to the transporting power of running
water. Several centuries ago immense quantities of this lighter material
were washed down from the higher slopes by a flood of extraordinary
magnitude, caused probably by the sudden melting of the ice and snow during
an eruption, giving rise to the deposition of conspicuous delta-like beds
around the base. And it is upon these flood-beds of moraine soil, thus
suddenly and simultaneously laid down and joined edge to edge, that the
flowery chaparral is growing.
Thus, by forces seemingly
antagonistic and destructive, Nature accomplishes her beneficent designs -
now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and again in
the fullness of time an outburst of organic life - forest and garden, with
all their wealth of fruit and flowers, the air stirred into one universal
hum with rejoicing insects, a milky way of wings and petals, girdling the
new-born mountain like a cloud, as if the vivifying sunbeams beating against
its sides had broken into a foam of plant-bloom and bees.
But with such grand displays
as Nature is making here, how grand are her reservations, bestowed only upon
those who devotedly seek them! Beneath the smooth and snowy surface the
fountain fires are still aglow, to blaze forth afresh at their appointed
times. The glaciers, looking so still and small at a distance, represented
by the artist with a patch of white paint laid on by a single stroke of his
brush, are still flowing onward, unhalting, with deep crystal currents,
sculpturing the mountain with stern, resistless energy. How many caves and
fountains that no eye has yet seen lie with all their fine furniture deep
down in the darkness, and how many shy wild creatures are at home beneath
the grateful lights and shadows of the woods, rejoicing in their fullness of
perfect life!
Standing on the edge of the
Strawberry Meadows in the sun-days of summer, not a foot or feather or leaf
seems to stir; and the grand, towering mountain with all its inhabitants
appears in rest, calm as a star. Yet how profound is the energy ever in
action, and how great is the multitude of claws and teeth, wings and eyes,
wide-awake and at work and shining! Going into the blessed wilderness, the
blood of the plants throbbing beneath the life-giving sunshine seems to be
heard and felt; plant- growth goes on before our eyes, and every tree and
bush and flower is seen as a hive of restless industry. The deeps of the sky
are mottled with singing wings of every color and tone - clouds of brilliant
chrysididee dancing and swirling in joyous rhythm, golden-barred vespida,
butterflies, grating cicadas and jolly rattling grasshoppers - fairly
enameling the light, and shaking all the air into music. Happy fellows they
are, every one of them, blowing tiny pipe and trumpet, plodding and
prancing, at work or at play.
Though winter holds the
summit, Shasta in summer is mostly a massy, bossy mound of flowers colored
like the alpenglow that flushes the snow. There are miles of wild roses,
pink bells of huckleberry and sweet manzanita, every bell a honey-cup,
plants that tell of the north and of the south; tall nodding lilies, the
crimson sarcodes, rhododendron, cassiope, and blessed linmea; phlox,
calycanthus, plum, cherry, cratagus, spira, mints, and clovers in endless
variety; ivesia, larkspur, and columbine; golden aplopappus, linosyris, [An
obsolete genus of plants now replaced in the main by Chrysothamnus and
Ercameria. Editor.] bahia, wyethia, arnica, brodiea, etc., - making sheets
and beds of light edgings of bloom in lavish abundance for the myriads of
the air dependent on their bounty.
The common honey-bees, gone wild in this sweet wilderness, gather tons of
honey into the hollows of the trees and rocks, clambering eagerly through
bramble and hucklebloom, shaking the clustered bells of the generous
manzanita, now humming aloft among polleny willows and firs, now down on the
ashy ground among small gilias and buttercups, and anon plunging into banks
of snowy cherry and buckthorn. They consider the lilies and roll into them,
pushing their blunt polleny faces against them like babies on their mother's
bosom; and fondly, too, with eternal love does Mother Nature clasp her small
bee-babies and suckle them, multitudes at once, on her warm Shasta breast.
Besides the common honey-bee there are many others here, fine, burly, mossy
fellows, such as were nourished on the mountains many a flowery century
before the advent of the domestic species - bumble-bees, mason- bees,
carpenter-bees, and leaf-cutters. Butterflies, too, and moths of every size
and pattern; some wide-winged like bats, flapping slowly and sailing in easy
curves; others like small flying violets shaking about loosely in short
zigzag flights close to the flowers, feasting in plenty night and day.
Deer in great abundance come
to Shasta from the warmer foothills every spring to feed in the rich, cool
pastures, and bring forth their young in the ceanothus tangles of the
chaparral zone, retiring again before the snowstorms of winter, mostly to
the southward and westward of the mountain. In like manner the wild sheep of
the adjacent region seek the lofty inaccessible crags of the summit as the
snow melts, and are driven down to the lower spurs and ridges where there is
but little snow, to the north and east of Shasta.
Bears, too, roam this foodful
wilderness, feeding on grass, clover, berries, nuts, ant-eggs, fish, flesh,
or fowl, - whatever comes in their way, -with but little troublesome
discrimination. Sugar and honey they seem to like best of all, and they seek
far to find the sweets; but when hard pushed by hunger they make out to gnaw
a living from the bark of trees and rotten logs, and might almost live on
clean lava alone.
Notwithstanding the
California bears have had as yet but little experience with honeybees, they
sometimes succeed in reaching the bountiful stores of these industrious
gatherers and enjoy the feast with majestic relish. But most honey-bees in
search of a home are wise enough to make choice of a hollow in a living tree
far from the ground, whenever such can be found. There they are pretty
secure, for though the smaller brown and black bears climb well, they are
unable to gnaw their way into strong hives, while compelled to exert
themselves to keep from falling and at the same time endure the stings of
the bees about the nose and eyes, without having their paws free to brush
them off. But woe to the unfortunates who dwell in some prostrate trunk, and
to the black bumble-bees discovered in their mossy, mouselike nests in the
ground. With powerful teeth and claws these are speedily laid bare, and
almost before time is given for a general buzz the bees, old and young,
larva, honey, stings, nest, and all, are devoured in one ravishing revel.
The antelope may still be
found in considerable numbers to the northeastward of Shasta, but the elk,
once abundant, have almost entirely gone from the region. The smaller
animals, such as the wolf, the various foxes, wildcats, coon, squirrels, and
the curious wood rat that builds large brush huts, abound in all the wilder
places; and the beaver, otter, mink, etc., may still be found along the
sources of the rivers. The blue grouse and mountain quail are plentiful in
the woods and the sage-hen on the plains about the northern base of the
mountain, while innumerable smaller birds enliven and sweeten every thicket
and grove.
There are at least five
classes of human inhabitants about the Shasta region: the Indians, now
scattered, few in numbers and miserably demoralized, though still offering
some rare specimens of savage manhood; miners and prospectors, found mostly
to the north and west of the mountain, since the region about its base is
overflowed with lava; cattle-raisers, mostly on the open plains to the
northeastward and around the Klamath Lakes; hunters and trappers, where the
woods and waters are wildest; and farmers, in Shasta Valley on the north
side of the mountain, wheat, apples, melons, berries, all the best
production of farm and garden growing and ripening there at the foot of the
great white cone, which seems at times during changing storms ready to fall
upon them - the most sublime farm scenery imaginable.
The Indians of the McCloud
River that have come under my observation differ considerably in habits and
features from the Diggers and other tribes of the foothills and plains, and
also from the Pah Utes and Modocs. They live chiefly on salmon. They seem to
be closely related to the Tlingits of Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, and
may readily have found their way here by passing from stream to stream in
which salmon abound. They have much better features than the Indians of the
plains, and are rather wide awake, speculative and ambitious in their way,
and garrulous, like the natives of the northern coast.
Before the Modoc War they
lived in dread of the Modocs, a tribe living about the Klamath Lake and the
Lava Beds, who were in the habit of crossing the low Sierra divide past the
base of Shasta on freebooting excursions, stealing wives, fish, and weapons
from the Pitts and McClouds. Mothers would hush their children by telling
them that the Modocs would catch them.
During my stay at the
Government fish- hatching station on the McCloud I was accompanied in my
walks along the river-bank by a 1\icCloud boy about ten years of age, a
bright, inquisitive fellow, who gave me the Indian names of the birds and
plants that we met. The water-ousel he knew well and he seemed to like the
sweet singer, which he called "Sussinny." He showed me how strips of the
stems of the beautiful maidenhair fern were used to adorn baskets with
handsome brown bands, and pointed out several plants good to eat,
particularly the large saxifrage growing abundantly along the river-margin.
Once I rushed suddenly upon him to see if he would be frightened; but he
unflinchingly held his ground, struck a grand heroic attitude, and shouted,
"Me no 'fraid; me Modoc!"
Mount Shasta, so far as I
have seen, has never been the home of Indians, not even their hunting-ground
to any great extent, above the lower slopes of the base. They are said to be
afraid of fire-mountains and geyser-basins as being the dwelling-places of
dangerously powerful and unmanageable gods. However, it is food and their
relations to other tribes that mainly control the movements of Indians; and
here their food was mostly on the lower slopes, with nothing except the wild
sheep to tempt them higher. Even these were brought within reach without
excessive climbing during the storms of winter.
On the north side of Shasta,
near Sheep Rock, there is a long cavern, sloping to the northward, nearly a
mile in length, thirty or forty feet wide, and fifty feet or more in height,
regular in form and direction like a railroad tunnel, and probably formed by
the flowing away of a current of lava after the hardening of the surface. At
the mouth of this cave, where the light and shelter is good, I found many of
the heads and horns of the wild sheep, and the remains of campfires, no
doubt those of Indian hunters who in stormy weather had camped there and
feasted after the fatigues of the chase. A wild picture that must have
formed on a dark night - the glow of the fire, the circle of crouching
savages around it seen through the smoke, the dead game, and the weird
darkness and half-darkness of the walls of the cavern, a picture of
cave-dwellers at home in the stone age!
Interest in hunting is almost
universal, so deeply is it rooted as an inherited instinct ever ready to
rise and make itself known. Fine scenery may not stir a fiber of mind or
body, but how quick and how true is the excitement of the pursuit of game!
Then up flames the slumbering volcano of ancient wildness, all that has been
done by church and school through centuries of cultivation is for the moment
destroyed, and the decent gentleman or devout saint becomes a howling,
bloodthirsty, demented savage. It is not long since we all were cave-men and
followed game for food as truly as wildcat or wolf, and the long repression
of civilization seems to make the rebound to savage love of blood all the
more violent. This frenzy, fortunately, does not last long in its most
exaggerated form, and after a season of wildness refined gentlemen from
cities are not more cruel than hunters and trappers who kill for a living.
Dwelling apart in the depths of the woods are the various kinds of
mountaineers, hunters, prospectors, and the like, - rare men, "queer
characters," and well worth knowing. Their cabins are located with reference
to game and the ledges to be examined, and are constructed almost as simply
as those of the wood rats made of sticks laid across each other without
compass or square. But they afford good shelter from storms, and so are
"square" with the need of their builders. These men as a class are
singularly fine in manners, though their faces may be scarred and rough like
the bark of trees. On entering their cabins you will promptly be placed on
your good behavior, and, your wants being perceived with quick insight,
complete hospitality will be offered for body and mind to the extent of the
larder.
These men know the mountains
far and near, and their thousand voices, like the leaves of a book. They can
tell where the deer may be found at any time of year or day, and what they
are doing; and so of all the other furred and feathered people they meet in
their walks; and they can send a thought to its mark as well as a bullet.
The aims of such people are not always the highest, yet how brave and manly
and clean are their lives compared with too many in crowded towns mildewed
and dwarfed in disease and crime! How fine a chance is here to begin life
anew in the free fountains and sky - lands of Shasta, where it is so easy to
live and to die! The future of the hunter is likely to be a good one; no
abrupt change about it, only a passing from wilderness to wilderness, from
one high place to another.
Now that the railroad has
been built up the Sacramento, everybody with money may go to Mount Shasta,
the weak as well as the strong, fine-grained, succulent people, whose legs
have never ripened, as well as sinewy mountaineers seasoned long in the
weather. This, surely, is not the best way of going to the mountains, yet it
is better than staying below. Many still small voices will not be heard in
the noisy rush and din, suggestive of going to the sky in a chariot of fire
or a whirlwind, as one is shot to the Shasta mark in a booming palace-car
cartridge; up the rocky cañon, skimming the foaming river, above the level
reaches, above the dashing spray - fine exhilarating translation, yet a pity
to go so fast in a blur, where so much might be seen and enjoyed.
The mountains are fountains
not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men. Therefore we are all, in
some sense, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home. Yet how
many are doomed to toil in town shadows while the white mountains beckon all
along the horizon! Up the cañon to Shasta would be a cure for all care. But
many on arrival seem at a loss to know what to do with themselves, and seek
shelter in the hotel, as if that were the Shasta they had come for. Others
never leave the rail, content with the window views, and cling to the
comforts of the sleeping-car like blind mice to their mothers. Many are sick
and have been dragged to the healing wilderness unwillingly for body-good
alone. Were the parts of the human machine detachable like Yankee
inventions, how strange would be the gatherings on the mountains of pieces
of people out of repair!
How sadly unlike the
whole-hearted ongoing of the seeker after gold is this partial, compulsory
mountaineering! - as if the mountain treasuries contained nothing better
than gold! Up the mountains they go, high-heeled and high-hatted, laden like
Christian with mortifications and mortgages of divers sorts and degrees,
some suffering from the sting of bad bargains, others exulting in good ones;
hunters and fishermen with gun and rod and leggins; blythe and jolly
troubadours to whom all Shasta is romance; poets singing their prayers; the
weak and the strong, unable or unwilling to bear mental taxation. But,
whatever the motive, all will be in some measure benefited. None may wholly
escape the good of Nature, however imperfectly exposed to her blessings. The
minister will not preach a perfectly flat and sedimentary sermon after
climbing a snowy peak; and the fair play and tremendous impartiality of
Nature, so tellingly displayed, will surely affect the after pleadings of
the lawyer. Fresh air at least will get into everybody, and the cares of
mere business will be quenched like the fires of a sinking ship.
Possibly a branch railroad may some time be built to the summit of Mount
Shasta like the road on Mount Washington. In the mean time tourists are
dropped at Sisson's, about twelve miles from the summit, whence as
headquarters they radiate in every direction to the so-called "points of
interest"; sauntering about the flowery fringes of the Strawberry Meadows,
bathing in the balm of the woods, scrambling, fishing, hunting; riding about
Castle Lake, the McCloud River, Soda Springs, Big Spring, deer pastures, and
elsewhere. Some demand bears, and make excited inquiries concerning their
haunts, how many there might be altogether on the mountain, and whether they
are grizzly, brown, or black. Others shout, "Excelsior," and make off at
once for the upper snow-fields. Most, however, are content with
comparatively level ground and moderate distances, gathering at the hotel
every evening laden with trophies - great sheaves of flowers, cones of
various trees, cedar and fir branches covered with yellow lichens, and
possibly a fish or two, or quail, or grouse.
But the heads of deer,
antelope, wild sheep, and bears are conspicuously rare or altogether wanting
in tourist collections in the "paradise of hunters." There is a grand
comparing of notes and adventures. Most are exhilarated and happy, though
complaints may occasionally be heard - "The mountain does not look so very
high after all, nor so very white; the snow is in patches like rags spread
out to dry," reminding one of Sydney Smith's joke against Jeffrey, "D-n the
Solar System; bad light, planets too indistinct." But far the greater number
are in good spirits, showing the influence of holiday enjoyment and mountain
air. Fresh roses come to cheeks that long have been pale, and sentiment
often begins to blossom under the new inspiration.
The Shasta region may be
reserved as a national park, with special reference to the preservation of
its fine forests and game. This should by all means be done; but, as far as
game is concerned, it is in little danger from tourists, notwithstanding
many of them carry guns, and are in some sense hunters. Going in noisy
groups, and with guns so shining, they are oftentimes confronted by
inquisitive Douglas squirrels, and are thus given opportunities for
shooting; but the larger animals retire at their approach and seldom are
seen. Other gun people, too wise or too lifeless to make much noise, move
slowly along the trails and about the open spots of the woods, like benumbed
beetles in a snowdrift. Such hunters are themselves hunted by the animals,
which in perfect safety follow them out of curiosity.
During the bright days of
midsummer the ascent of Shasta is only a long, safe saunter, without fright
or nerve-strain, or even serious fatigue, to those in sound health. Setting
out from Sisson's on horseback, accompanied by a guide leading a pack-animal
with provisions, blankets, and other necessaries, you follow a trail that
leads up to the edge of the timberline, where you camp for the night, eight
or ten miles from the hotel, at an elevation of about ten thousand feet. The
next day, rising early, you may push on to the summit and return to
Sisson's. But it is better to spend more time in the enjoyment of the grand
scenery on the summit and about the head of the Whitney Glacier, pass the
second night in camp, and return to Sisson's on the third day. Passing
around the margin of the meadows and on through the zones of the forest, you
will have good opportunities to get ever-changing views of the mountain and
its wealth of creatures that bloom and breathe.
The woods differ but little
from those that clothe the mountains to the southward, the trees being
slightly closer together and generally not quite so large, marking the
incipient change from the open sunny forests of the Sierra to the dense damp
forests of the northern coast, where a squirrel may travel in the branches
of the thick-set trees hundreds of miles without touching the ground. Around
the upper belt of the forest you may see gaps where the ground has been
cleared by avalanches of snow, thousands of tons in weight, which,
descending with grand rush and roar, brush the trees from their paths like
so many fragile shrubs or grasses.
At first the ascent is very
gradual. The mountain begins to leave the plain in slopes scarcely
perceptible, measuring from two to three degrees. These are continued by
easy gradations mile after mile all the way to the truncated, crumbling
summit, where they attain a steepness of twenty to twenty-five degrees. The
grand simplicity of these lines is partially interrupted on the north
subordinate cone that rises from the side of the main cone about three
thousand feet from the summit. This side cone, past which your way to the
summit lies, was active after the breaking-up of the main ice-cap of the
glacial period, as shown by the comparatively unwasted crater in which it
terminates and by streams of fresh- looking, unglaciated lava that radiate
from it as a center.
The main summit is about a
mile and a half in diameter from southwest to northeast, and is nearly
covered with snow and névé, bounded by crumbling peaks and ridges, among
which we look in vain for any sure plan of an ancient crater. The extreme
summit is situated on the southern end of a narrow ridge that bounds the
general summit on the east. Viewed from the north, it appears as an
irregular blunt point about ten feet high, and is fast disappearing before
the stormy atmospheric action to which it is subjected.
At the base of the eastern
ridge, just below the extreme summit, hot sulphurous gases and vapor escape
with a hissing, bubbling noise from a fissure in the lava. Some of the many
small vents cast up a spray of clear hot water, which falls back repeatedly
until wasted in vapor. The steam and spray seem to be produced simply by
melting snow coming in the way of the escaping gases, while the gases are
evidently derived from the heated interior of the mountain, and may be
regarded as the last feeble expression of the mighty power that lifted the
entire mass of the mountain from the volcanic depths fat below the surface
of the plain.
The view from the summit in
clear weather extends to an immense distance in every direction.
Southeastward, the low volcanic portion of the Sierra is seen like a map,
both flanks as well as the crater-dotted axis, as far as Lassen's [An early
local name for what is now known as Lassen Peak, or Mt. Lassen. In 1914 its
volcanic activity was resumed with spectacular eruptions of ashes, steam,
and gas. Editor.] Butte, a prominent landmark and an old volcano like
Shasta, between ten and eleven thousand feet high, and distant about sixty
miles. Some of the higher summit peaks near Independence Lake, one hundred
and eighty miles away, are at times distinctly visible. Far to the north, in
Oregon, the snowy volcanic cones of Mounts Pitt, Jefferson, and the Three
Sisters rise in clear relief, like majestic monuments, above the dim dark
sea of the northern woods. To the northeast lie the Rhett and Klamath Lakes,
the Lava Beds, and a grand display of hill and mountain and gray rocky
plains. The Scott, Siskiyou, and Trinity Mountains rise in long, compact
waves to the west and southwest, and the valley of the Sacramento and the
coast mountains, with their marvelous wealth of woods and waters, are seen;
while close around the base of the mountain lie the beautiful Shasta Valley,
Strawberry Valley, Huckleberry Valley, and many others, with the headwaters
of the Shasta, Sacramento, and McCloud Rivers. Some observers claim to have
seen the ocean from the sununit of Shasta, but I have not yet been so
fortunate.
The Cinder Cone near Lassen's
Butte is remarkable as being the scene of the most recent volcanic eruption
in the range. It is a symmetrical truncated cone covered with gray cinders
and ashes, with a regular crater in which a few pines an inch or two in
diameter are growing. It stands between two small lakes which previous to
the last eruption, when the cone was built, formed one lake. From near the
base of the cone a flood of extremely rough black vesicular lava extends
across what was once a portion of the bottom of the lake into the forest of
yellow pine.
This lava-flow seems to have
been poured out during the same eruption that gave birth to the cone,
cutting the lake in two, flowing a little way into the woods and
overwhelming the trees in its way, the ends of some of the charred trunks
still being visible, projecting from beneath the advanced snout of the flow
where it came to rest; while the floor of the forest for miles around is so
thickly strewn with loose cinders that walking is very fatiguing. The Pitt
River Indians tell of a fearful time of darkness, probably due to this
eruption, when the sky was filled with falling cinders which, as they
thought, threatened every living creature with destruction, and say that
when at length the sun appeared through the gloom it was red like blood.
Less recent craters in great
numbers dot the adjacent region, some with lakes in their throats, some
overgrown with trees, others nearly hare - telling monuments of Nature's
mountain fires so often lighted throughout the northern Sierra. And,
standing on the top of icy Shasta, the mightiest fire-monument of them all,
we can hardly fail to look forward to the blare and glare of its next
eruption and wonder whether it is nigh. Elsewhere men have planted gardens
and vineyards in the craters of volcanoes quiescent for ages, and almost
without warning have been hurled into the sky. More than a thousand years of
profound calm have been known to intervene between two violent eruptions.
Seventeen centuries intervened between two consecutive eruptions on the
island of Ischia. Few volcanoes continue permanently in eruption. Like
gigantic geysers, spouting hot stone instead of hot water, they work and
sleep, and we have no sure means of knowing whether they are only sleeping
or dead. |
