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Show TTT. LA5SEN.TR0r'l LOST CREEK. snowbank near the summit and the fierce heat of the explosion together with a great mass of hot cinders rapidly rapid-ly melted the snow, and the water mixed with the ashes and the sand to a muddy consistency rushed down the mountainside in an irresistible torrent, covering portions of the valley for a width of two miles with mud from one to two feet deep. Upheaval That Made Lassen There was a time in remote geological ages when Lassen peak did not exist, when the waves of the Pacific Pa-cific ocean rolled over the broad expanse ex-panse of what is now Sacramento valley val-ley and washed the shores of a continent conti-nent which terminated at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Then began a wonderful upheaval of the earth's crust attended with a tremendous tre-mendous display of subterranean energy and the most brilliant series of thermal, explosive and volcanic outbursts out-bursts the world has ever known. This was when the giant volcanoes of Lassen and Shasta and the mountains moun-tains of the Cascade range were born. The foundations of the great deep were broken up. During the uplifting of basic rock by stupendous subterranean forces they were metamorphosed by the intense heat and veins and dikes were filled with the melted rock from below. In the imaginative language of an early writer: "The fufferal day of the old world had come. It must be buried. The momentous event was ushered in by one of the grandest displays of terrestrial fireworks earth ever witnessed. wit-nessed. But there were no human spectators. spec-tators. All the pageantry and pomp of earth and heaven were presented on a scale of magnificence never since equaled. The roar of heaven's artillery artil-lery was drowned in the more terrible crash of breaking and heaving mountains; moun-tains; the sun was quenched by the fiercer gleams of red flames that shot from a hundred volcanoes; along half a thousand miles, from the foundations of Lassen and Shasta to those of Hood and Rainier, the earth was opened in wide-gaping chasms and tremendous floods of surging, burning, liquid lavas were poured out; and black, suffocating suffocat-ing showers of ashes and volcanic dust were shot high in air and carried far out over the ocean, now shallowed by the terrific upheavals." The area that was affected by this great turning over of nature in her sleep is of immense extent. It includes in-cludes parts of California, Nevada, most of Oregon and a large part of Washington. Its extent is about 150,-000 150,-000 square miles. "Volcanic phenomena," says a professor pro-fessor in the University of London, "are the outward manifestations of forces deep-seated beneath the crust of the globe. Th9 universality of these phenomena all over the surface of the globe in past and present times indicates indi-cates the existence of a general cause beneath the earth's crust. "The similarity of volcanic lava over wide regions is strong evidence that they are drawn from one continuous magma consisting of molten matter beneath the solid exterior crust." Since the first outburst of the Lassen Las-sen volcano there have been to date several hundred other eruptions carrying carry-ing gray ash and fine, dry powder and sometimes rock and rounded lava bowlders, but at no time has there been any flowing melted lava. Yet every explosion, every discharge oi ashes and projectiles is accompanied by powerful jets of steam and vapor and a roar like the firing of some monster mon-ster gun. It gives no sign3 of letting up. CALIFORNIA, the state of perennial per-ennial self-advertising and of marvels too numerous to mention, men-tion, has the downright good luck of being in possession of the only volcano which the eyes of white men have ever seen in a state of eruption within the borders of the United States. It was on May 30, 1914, that the Cali-fornians Cali-fornians who lived within a radius of fifteen to twenty miles of Mt. Lassen were awakened out of their night's sleep by a roar and a thunder like the sound of thousands of heavy cannon going off. A black column of smoke, attended attend-ed with hot ashes, fine sand and hissing hiss-ing steam, was shot up from deep caverns cav-erns of the earth into the sky 5,000 feet above the summit of the mountain, which is itself nearly two miles high. The Californians could scarcely believe be-lieve their senses. They had been used to considering Lassen peak as a harmless old pet, as a quiet old monster mon-ster who didn't have a tooth left in her head. And then to have her suddenly become one of the most savage active volcanoes in the world was almost too much for them. But with the true California spirit the Californians got busy and made Lassen peak and its eruption shout for the glory of California. "If California has a dead volcano that won't behave itself and stay dead," said the Californians, Califor-nians, "then we'll make a virtue of its misbehavior, advertise it and get more tourists to come to God's favorite spot of earth." This is just what the Californians did. It was just their luck to come into in-to possession of the only live volcano the United States owns. So they advertised ad-vertised it right and left and got notices no-tices and reviews concerning it in all the papers and magazines in the land. Gives a Fine Display. Lassen peak is a giant mountain with a height of 10,437 feet. It is built up entirely of materials drawn fron the deep interior of the earth. California Cali-fornia claims it now as one of her most wonderful scenes. Not only is it a rugged sentinel guarding the state's northern frontier but it is constantly challenging attention and exciting admiration ad-miration by splendid displays of deep-seated deep-seated energy and by sending forth magnificent black plumes into the sky often accompanied by a grand bombardment bom-bardment of great rocks. About 1,200 feet of its summit can be seen from the mail stage at a distance dis-tance of 20 miles. Steam can be seen gently steaming forth. Every once in a while a column of black smoke comes forth and rises straight towards the zenith. A long horizontal light-colored cloud lies apparently above the volcano. The smoke sometimes readies readi-es a height which mountaineers have estimated as being 5,000 feet abov6 the volcano opening. It impresses itself it-self indelibly upon the memory of anyone any-one who is lucky enough to see it. The crater itself cannot be approached ap-proached at present on account of the incessant spurts of steam, and the possibility pos-sibility of an outburst of cinders, ashes and rocks, not to mention flows of lava which may take place any minute. At such times a fine sand ranging from an almost impalpable but gritty powder to very small pebbles is projected pro-jected with great violence from the throat of the monster and carried to distances of from fifteen to twenty miles. It was on the northern and eastern east-ern side of the mountain that the tremendously tre-mendously large rocks were projected from the volcano and sent tumbling down the steep mountain side toward Manzanita lake, four miles distant, when the tremendous and historic outburst out-burst occurred on May 22, 1915. Some of the daring mountaineers set out with lines-to measure these stones shortly after the eruption. They found two great rocks, one 12 by 14 by 10 feet and the other 11 by 9 by 17 feet, both still so hot that they blistered their hands in measuring them. Another An-other great rock which was vomited forth set fire to a green sapling against which it rested. It was on the northern slope of the mountain that the great disaster of Hat creek occurred. There was a deep |