STORY OF MOUNT MAZAMA

EW of the astonishing pictures which geology has restored for us of this world in its making are so startling as that of Mount Mazama, Which once reared a smoking peak many thousands of feet above the present peaceful level of Crater Lake. There were many noble volcanoes in the range: Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Mount Mazama, Mount Hood, Mount Shasta. Once their vomitings built the great Cascade Mountains. To-day, cold and silent, they stand wrapped in shining armor of ice.

But not all. One is missing. Where Mount Mazama reared his noble head, there is nothing—until you climb the slopes once his foothills, and gaze spellbound over the broken lava cliffs into the lake which lies magically where once he stood. The story of the undoing of Mount Mazama, of the birth of this wonder lake, is one of the great stories of the earth.

Mount Mazama fell into itself. It is as if some vast cavern formed in the earth's seething interior into which the entire volcano suddenly slipped. The imagination of Dore might have reproduced some hint of the titanic spectacle of the disappearance of a mountain fifteen thousand feet in height.

When Mount Mazama collapsed into this vast hole, leaving clean cut the edges which to-day are Crater Lake's surrounding cliffs, there was instantly a surging hack. The crumbling lavas were forced again up the huge chimney.

But not all the way. The vent became jammed. In three spots only did the fires emerge again. Three small volcanoes formed in the hollow.

But these in turn soon choked and cooled. During succeeding ages springs poured their waters into the vast cavity, and Crater Lake was born. Its rising waters covered two of the small volcanic cones. The third still emerges. It is called Wizard Island.

VIEW FROM CRATER LAKE LODGE ACROSS THE END OF THE LAKE WESTWARD OF WIZARD ISLANDPhotograph by H. T. Cowling