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Show LASSEN VOLCANIC NATIONAL PARK Mount Lassen, which geologists are pleased to term "a dying volcano," Is' located In the southeastern part of Shasta county in northern California. Lassen, standing between the ends of two mountain ranges noted far and wide for the beauty of their scenery the Sierra Nevadas and the Cascades rise to a height of 10,460 feet, and has the distinction of being the only volcano located within the confines of our United States that may be regarded re-garded as being at all active. Although there were outward Indications In-dications of the fact that tremendous Internal heat continued to prevail, with the exception of the escape of some smoke or steam at somewhat Irregular Ir-regular as well as infrequent periods, no serious eruption had occurred for so long (about two centuries) that the present generation of the world at large has practically forgotten that there was such a peak as Lassen, let alone the fact that it had volcanic tendencies. Consequently, In 1915, when Mount Lassen, with surprising suddeness. broke out In a series of violent explosions and eruptions which attracted the attention of the nations of the world to its doing, there was a rush for histories and geographies to post up on tills mountain. Although students of voicanlc action ac-tion contend that recent eruptions were feeble in violence as compared with those of long ago, nearby residents resi-dents declare that these latest ones were terrifying to the nth degree Tremendous, broad-spreading columns of dense smoke were forcibly expelled ex-pelled from the crater; small stones were thrown a mile or more, many bowlders not so far, sand and lva dust rained down on the surrounding surround-ing country over a radius of two miles. A blast of heated gas escaped, swept down a creek valley, melted the Bnow and created a torrent. The only possible sight of the kind In the United States, following out Its policy of preserving the most distinguished dis-tinguished of our scenic possibilities "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People," congress, In 1916, created the peak and the volcanic and lava fields, lakes, springs, and canyons which surround It, In all 124 square miles, as a national park. |