Part 10

Two of the imposing cañons here are Los Molinos and Warner Cañon. These and other changes in the sides of Lassen Peak illustrate the old, ever-interesting, and eternal story of erosion. Both these cañons are wild places which have cut and eroded deeply into the ancient lavas of Mount Lassen. Frost and water have reshaped the work of fire. The mountain's sides show that it withstood the latest visits of the Ice King. What appear to be the distinct records of glacial erosion mark many spaces of its slopes.

[Illustration: LASSEN PEAK IN ERUPTION _Copyright, 1914, by B. F. Loomis_]

The eruption of May 19, 1915, produced many changes. A volume of super-heated gases burst out beneath the deeply snow-covered northeast slope. The snow was instantly changed into water and steam. The mighty downrush and onrush of water wrecked the channel of Lost Creek for several miles. Meadows were piled with boulders, rock fragments, and finer débris. Trees were uprooted or broken off, carried downward, and left in piles of fierce confusion.

The hot gases played havoc with the forests. A stretch from a quarter of a mile to nearly a mile wide and about ten miles long was killed by the heat of the sweeping hurricane. Thousands of trees were instantly killed and their green changed to brown. Others were charred. Forest fires were started in a number of places.

The spectacular ruins which this left behind--the trees, wreckage, slides, the changes made by ashes--may now be viewed with ease and safety. It is probable that for years to come this volcanic wreckage will be seen by thousands of visitors annually.

Fiery Lassen Peak is snow-crowned. One may ride to its summit on horseback. From the top one has magnificent views of the mountains to the north, the distant Coast Range, and the mountains eastward by the Great Basin. On the whole, the surrounding mountain distances are hardly excelled for grandeur in the entire country.

Cinder Cone is about ten miles to the northeast of Lassen Peak. It has an altitude of only 6907 feet. It appears to have been built up chiefly during the last two hundred years and for the most part by two eruptions. One of these occurred nearly two hundred years ago. It originated Stump Lake and ejected and spread materials over considerable territory. The more recent eruption appears to have taken place less than a century ago. In the summer of 1890 I found in the crater a lodge-pole pine that was about eighty years of age.

Cinder Cone is a strikingly symmetrical small crater formed of cinders and other volcanic products. It stands in a lava-field that has an area of about three square miles. Its base measures about two thousand feet in diameter, its truncated cone seven hundred and fifty feet, and it is about six hundred and fifty feet high. Its well-preserved crater is two hundred and forty feet deep and is nicely funnel-shaped.

The Indians of the region had a popular tradition of the intense

## activity of this cone about three centuries ago. This tradition was

that for a long time the sky was black with ashes and smoke. Thousands of acres of forest were buried or smothered. The world appeared to be coming to an end. But finally the sun appeared, red as blood. The sky cleared, and volcanic activity ceased.

A number of the hot springs are agitated almost enough to be called geysers. Cold and mineral springs abound. There are a number of lively streams and plunging waterfalls.

The lake-area is twenty-three hundred acres. The largest of the lakes is Lake Bidwell. Cinder Cone stands between two lakes which appear to have been formerly one. The eruption of this cone probably extended a lava-flow across the lake, dividing it into two parts. An outpouring of volcanic material apparently made a dam, which formed a reservoir, now occupied by Stump Lake. This filled with water and drowned a forest growth. Through the surface of this lake still thrust numerous tree-trunks of the drowned forest. The outburst of Cinder Cone that formed this lake and overwhelmed the forest probably took place nearly two hundred years ago. Other lakes are Juniper, Tilman, and Manzanita Lakes.

The greater portion of the Park is forested. Among the more common species of trees are Jeffrey pine, red fir, mountain hemlock, lodge-pole pine, white fir, and incense cedar. In places among the forests are beautiful mountain meadows.

There are scores of varieties of wild flowers. Most of these grow under favorable conditions; have warmth, moisture, and rich soil; and they show bright, clean blossoms. The district has its full share of bird and animal life. In a number of streams fish are plentiful.

The Lassen Volcanic National Park was created chiefly through the efforts of Congressmen John E. Raker and William Kent.

The varied objects of interest in this Park, especially those associated with topography and geology, make it not only a place with curious features, but a region affording unusual opportunities for the gathering of fundamental facts concerning our resources. Here also are scenes to inspire the souls of such as can be moved by the beauty and grandeur of Nature and by the awful manifestations of her power.

Says J. S. Diller, of the United States Geological Survey, "With its comfortably active volcano, inviting cinder cones and lava fields, vigorously boiling hot springs, mud lakes and 'mush pots' for the vulcanologist to study, and the glaciated divides and cañons for the physiographer, in a setting of lovely scenery and attractive camps, for the tourists all easily accessible, the Lassen Peak region affords one of the most alluring and instructive spots for a National Park."

XI

HAWAII NATIONAL PARK

A volcanic exhibit unrivaled in the world is embraced in the Hawaii National Park, which was created in 1916. This Park consists of two volcanic sections in the Hawaiian Islands, with a total area of one hundred and seventeen square miles. Within this territory are two

## active volcanoes, Kilauea and Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii; and

one sleeping volcano, Haleakala on the island of Maui.

The celebrated and unequaled Hawaiian volcanoes are a national scenic asset, unique of their kind and famous in the world of science. Apparently, the ocean has been filled in and the entire group of Hawaiian Islands built by the lava-outpourings of volcanoes. In this National Park we may see volcanic topography in the course of construction; some landscapes just cast in the process of cooling; others that are beginning to show the erosion of the elements; also those which vegetation is just possessing.

The Hawaii National Park has about the same latitude as the City of Mexico. There are about a dozen islands in the group, with a total area of seventy-five hundred square miles. Honolulu, the capital city, is on the island of Oahu, near the middle of the island chain, which extends from northwest to southeast. From San Francisco it is about twenty-one hundred miles to Honolulu.

Kilauea is more than two hundred miles southeast of Honolulu, and thirty miles inland from the port of Hilo. Twenty miles to the west from Kilauea is Mauna Loa. The crater of Haleakala is on a different island from Kilauea and Mauna Loa, about midway between these and Honolulu.

The active rim of Kilauea is four thousand feet above the sea. The slopes of this volcano have an exceedingly flat grade. It is the most continuously active of the three volcanoes in this Park. It has a pit in which the molten lava rises and falls and is boiling all the time. For a century Kilauea has been almost continuously active with a lake or lakes of molten lava. The crater of Kilauea is not a steep mountain-top, but a broad, forested plateau, beneath which is a lava sink three miles in diameter, surrounded by cliffs three hundred feet high. Several times during the last century the active crater was upheaved into a hill. In a little while it collapsed into a deep pit with marvelously spectacular avalanches, fiery grottos, and clouds of steam and brown dust. Through many years the crater was overflowing. Frequently large pieces of the shore fall into the molten lake, forming islands.

The magnificent spectacle of the lake of lava at Kilauea is indescribable. Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University, visited the crater and pronounced it the most wonderful scene he had ever watched. It is a lake of liquid fire one thousand feet across, splashing on its banks with a noise like the waves of the sea. Great high fountains boil up through it, sending quantities of glowing spray over the shore. There are fiery, molten cascades, whirlpools, and rapids, with hissing of gases, rumbling, and blue flames playing through the crevices. It is ever changing, and the record of these changes is being kept from day to day, photographically and otherwise, by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Mauna Loa is an active crater, 13,675 feet above sea-level. It is an enormous mountain mass, covering a wide area with its very gentle slopes. This volcano erupts about once every decade. Of the three volcanoes in the Park, Mauna Loa is the most productive of new rock, which it pours out on the surface of the land. Its activities start with outbursts on the summit and culminate after a number of years in a flow which floods the whole country for many months.

Perpetual snow crowns Mauna Loa, and ice may be found in cracks even in summer. In the winter-time there is a variety of climate from sea-level to the summit--from the warmth of the tropics to arctic blizzards on the mountain-top.

An interesting and somewhat amusing story is told in regard to an eruption of Mauna Loa in 1881. The flow of lava at that time was so heavy that it seriously threatened to wipe out the town of Hilo. When the lava ran down to within a mile of the place, the natives urged their Princess Ruth to go and conjure the goddess of the volcano, Pele, to stop the flow. She went--so the tales goes--with all her retinue, and threw into the crater some berries, a black hen, a white pig, and a bottle of gin, as sacrifices. The lava-flow stopped, and the natives believed their escape due to the odd offering, although some people have expressed the opinion that such a collection of stuff thrown into an active volcano's crater would make the eruption more violent, if it had any effect at all.

Mauna Loa forces columns of liquid lava hundreds of feet into the air, and every few years pours forth billions of tons of lava in a few days. There is a wonderful rift-line, from which eight or ten flows poured forth during the last century. These burst out on the slopes of the mountain, not from the summit crater. After the first explosion at the summit, a period of quiet intervenes, and then the rifts open and lava flows down.

The lava cools quickly and changes through colors of red, purple, brown, and gray as it cools. Areas of each of these are seen at one time, with red-hot liquids showing in the cracks of the lava. Trees of lava are formed at one place by the flow of lava rushing through a forest and congealing around the trunks. Fields of "Pele's hair"--lava--are blown out by the wind, like spun glass, as the fiery spray is dashed into the air on the surface of the molten lake. In the large craters are numerous smaller ones with endless lava forms, colors, and volcanic structures.

The crater of Haleakala, ten thousand feet high, is near the middle of the island of Maui. It is eight miles in diameter and three thousand feet deep. While Haleakala has not erupted for two hundred years, the entire crater is sometimes full of active fire fountains, and the fiery glow mounts to the clouds like an immense conflagration.

Professor Thomas A. Jaggar says, "The crater of Haleakala at sunrise is the grandest volcanic spectacle on earth."

No photograph can give any adequate idea of the view from its summit, often above the clouds. It is a good place from which to see the sun come up through the clouds in the crater. This event has been described as being like the birth of a new world. From here one can look down on the island and on the sea, and see the neighboring island of Oahu.

Sidney Ballou says: "A number of people who have been to the top of Haleakala pronounce the sensation there, although somewhat indefinable and indescribable, as the chief scenic attraction of the world. Men like John Muir, who have been all over the world, go up there and say that it is the greatest spectacle in the world."

In addition to the variety of volcanic displays and lava landscapes, the Hawaiian Park contains splendid tropical groves and forests of sandalwood and magnificent Hawaiian mahogany trees with trunks over twenty feet in circumference. There are forests of tree ferns up to forty feet in height, with single leaves twenty feet long; tropical jungles with scores of varieties of the most exquisite and delicate ferns and mosses, many of them found nowhere else in the world. There are numerous song-birds of brilliant hues, many of them found nowhere but in Hawaii, and nearly extinct except in this Park. There are rolling grassy meadows, dotted with tropical trees, shrubs, and ferns, giving a parklike effect. Many of the trees are botanical treasures, known only in this Park region, and of great rarity.

The views from the slopes and summits of the volcanic peaks are a mingling of wild magnificence and tropical splendor. The craters themselves are weird spectacles that awe visitors into silence as they watch the wonderful action of the liquid fire fountains, boiling lakes, flaming lava, and other demonstrations of the Fire King.

L. A. Thurston, of Honolulu, appears to have first proposed this Park, and he did much toward its acquisition.

XII

THREE NATIONAL MONUMENTS

1. THE OLYMPIC NATIONAL MONUMENT

The territory embraced in the Olympic National Monument is now proposed for use as a National Park. It occupies the extreme northwest corner of the United States, a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound. It is dominated by the precipitous and heavily snow-capped Olympic Mountains. These snowy summits attracted the attention of the explorer Vancouver, who named the mountains the Olympics. Their lower slopes are heavily forested with gigantic trees, and beneath these there is an undergrowth of almost bewildering luxuriance. This undergrowth is a jungle in itself. Many of the trees are heavily and picturesquely roped and bearded with moss. The openness which characterizes the Sierra or Rocky Mountain forests is absent. Gigantic tree-trunks lie scattered over the forest floor. Many of these fell centuries ago and are water-soaked, half-rotten, and covered with moss a foot thick. Here and there a living tree, a century or more of age, is standing upon a fallen one. Others are lost in the tangle of vines, huge ferns, and vigorous wild flowers that crowd the floor of the woods. Even at midday the forest reposes in twilight.

The region is extremely difficult to penetrate and explore. The streams, even during the period of low water, are almost too swift for boats, and the tangled jungle-growth, produced by abundant moisture and a mild climate, compels the explorer to chop every foot of the way he advances. Until recent years trappers, who were supposed to go everywhere, were content to work around its outskirts. Even the adventurous prospector passed it by, and searched the earth over for gold before seeking in the heart of the Olympics. Through the combined efforts of government agents, individuals, and organizations, the region has at last been pretty well explored. Both in exploring this Olympic region and in endeavoring to have a part of its primeval scenes saved in a park, the Mountaineers Club of Seattle has taken an aggressive part.

Up to the altitude of about four thousand feet the mountains are wrapped in dense green and heavy forest gloom. Then come the scattered grassy, flowery, snowy openings. Timber-line, kept low by the excessive snowfall, is at about fifty-five hundred feet altitude, one thousand feet lower than in the Alps, and six thousand feet below the forest frontier on the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The summit slopes are a broken array of snow-fields, ice-piles, and glaciers. Above the timber-line, vast, deep snow-fields cover much of the area. These white summits show from far out at sea.

Mount Olympus, with an altitude of 8250 feet, is the highest peak. Among the other commanding peaks are Meany, Cougar, and Seattle.

The climate, tempered by the warm sea, is mild. Probably no other region in the United States has a heavier rainfall and snowfall. From sixty to one hundred feet of snow is deposited over it each winter. The only comparatively rainless months are July and August. The rain, and the water from the ice- and snow-fields, supply numerous steeply inclined streams, which descend in roaring waterfalls and in long, leaping wild cascades.

This region excels in the number and crowded conditions of large tree growth, and the impenetrable luxuriance of undergrowth. Hemlock, cedar, spruce, and fir predominate. While the hemlock is the most common tree here, the cedar is the most striking. The latter is a strangely stiff and mysterious tree of rather stocky growth. In this moist, mild clime it finds conditions for development almost ideal. The two kinds of cedar are the Alaska and the red. Thousands of acres here may be seen crowded with tall trees that will average five feet or more in diameter and one hundred and fifty feet in height. Trees twelve feet in diameter are not uncommon, and the United States Geological Survey reports one with a diameter of twenty-eight feet! Thousands of acres of red fir trees may also be found in which the average height of the trees is two hundred and forty feet!

Wild flowers are everywhere. They edge the snow-fields, cover the breaks in the cliffs, line the streams, and bank with bloom the fallen forest patriarchs. Among the common blossoms are the lovely cassiope,--white heather,--mountain anemone, phlox, and "Indian basket grass."

[Illustration: MOUNT ST. HELENS From the Timber-Line Trail on Mount Rainier]

This is the home of the gigantic Olympic Roosevelt elk, and among the other common animals are the bear, deer, wolf, fox, lynx, otter, and beaver. The streams are simply crowded with trout. Bald eagles are found, and there is an array of flickers, woodpeckers, warblers, jays, sparrows, and hummingbirds. The solitudes of this sylvan park are cheered with the melody of the water-ouzel, the Alaska hermit thrush, and the winter wren.

But the mountain summits are significant as view-points. From them one commands the sea, islands, and the broken shore of the Pacific. Bright Puget Sound, with a scattering of dark islands and ragged edges, fills the foreground. Looking toward the southeast across the darkly forested mountains through which rolls the Columbia, one enjoys a view vast and imposing. The dark forest cover is pierced by three snow-laden and steaming sleeping volcanoes. The most impressive one of these is Mount Rainier, with a score of enormous glaciers covering head and shoulders. Another one is Mount Adams. But the most exquisitely beautiful of all the peaks which the summits of the Olympics command is Mount St. Helens. The head and shoulders of this mountain rise a perfect snowy cone above the purple forest robe and stand as perfectly poised as a Greek statue of marble.

The Olympic National Park should include about three hundred square miles. What a splendid attraction if this area of primeval scenes and forests were kept in a state of nature!

2. THE NATURAL BRIDGES AND RAINBOW BRIDGE NATIONAL MONUMENTS

Utah has the four grandest natural bridges in the world. Three of these are in the Natural Bridges National Monument, and the fourth in the Rainbow Bridge National Monument. There are natural bridges elsewhere in Utah, and in the Yellowstone and the Mesa Verde National Parks; also in Virginia and various other places. But so far as known, the four in these two National Monuments excel all others in size, in impressiveness, and in wildness of setting.

These National Monuments embrace desert regions in southeastern Utah which are made up mostly of rock-formations. Standing out on the strange desert, the fantastic forms and weird sandstone figures exhibited give the whole region a peculiar impressiveness. There are countless statuesque forms and groups that are surprisingly faithful in their resemblance to figures of birds, animals, humans, and temples; and all are of heroic size.

The bridges in the Natural Bridges Monument are known as the Sipapu or Augusta Bridge, the Kachima or Caroline Bridge, and the Owachomo or Little Bridge. The former of each of these names is of Indian origin and is the official one.

These three bridges are all within a small area. The Sipapu is 260 feet long on the bottom; the span is 157 feet high and 22 feet above the creek-bed. Its road-bed width is 28 feet. The Kachima Bridge has a span of 156 feet, a total height of 205 feet, and a width across the top of 49 feet. The Owachomo Bridge has a light, graceful structure. Its span is 194 feet and its surface 108 feet above the bottom. The arching part has a thickness of only 10 feet.

The Rainbow Bridge, whose official name is Nonnezoshie, is more of a magnificent rainbow arch than a bridge. It has splendid and striking proportions. Its great graceful arch is 308 feet high and 274 feet long.

[Illustration: RAINBOW NATURAL BRIDGE RAINBOW NATIONAL MONUMENT]

These bridges are of sandstone of reddish cast, stained in many places with blackish or greenish lichens and rust. Like any other rock-forms, they are the product of various erosive forces--illustrating the survival of the fittest. Their material, being slightly more durable than that of the now vanished rocks, or possibly less severely tested, has endured while the other material has been dissolved and worn away. In the fashioning of the surface of the earth Nature sometimes makes beautiful and imposing statuary. She has done so here. In the surrounding country are turrets, cisterns, wells, conelike and dome-like caves and caverns, and nearly complete arches. In fact, arches and bridges showing every degree of completion and past prime condition may be seen. Near by are numerous deserted cliff dwellings. These unusual structures leave a lasting impression on every visitor. Plans are already under way to make these wonders easily accessible to the public.

3. MUKUNTUWEAP NATIONAL MONUMENT

The Mukuntuweap National Monument, Utah, has as spectacular a cañon, and as stupendous an array of vast rock-forms, as is to be found anywhere in the world. This territory is often spoken of as "The Little Zion River Region." The Mukuntuweap Cañon has some of the forms shown in the Grand Cañon, and an array of colors not equaled in any other cañon known. In width it varies from half a mile to only a few rods across. It does not all tend in a straight direction. It curves. The cañon walls in places are sheer and rise from two thousand to three thousand feet. One of its most startling features is shown in the overhanging walls, which the water has undercut so that in places the walls prevent a person in the bottom from seeing the sky.

In a recent report on this cañon, T. E. Hunt, of the Department of the Interior, wrote:--