re 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 far 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 Butte [6], 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 summit 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 flo
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