While the increase of temperature with the depth suggested “that the bottom” might “yet be warm from volcanic heat,” it was determined that further observations were needed to “establish such an abnormal relation of temperatures in a body of water.” [35]
In July 1897 an article appeared in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institutiondescribing the various scientific studies that had been conducted at Crater Lake. J.S. Diller, an employee of the U.S. Geological Survey, discussed the various geographical and geological features of the lake. Among his glowing observations which prompted him to call for national park status for Crater Lake were:
Aside from its attractive scenic features, Crater Lake affords one of the most interesting and instructive fields for the study of volcanic geology to be found anywhere in the world. Considered in all its aspects, it ranks with the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the Yosemite Valley, and the Falls of Niagara, and it is interesting to note that a bill has been introduced in Congress to make it a national park for the pleasure and instruction of the people. [36]
In January 1898 Frederick V. Colville, chief botanist of the Department of Agriculture, submitted a report on sheep grazing in the Cascade Range Forest Reserve. The investigation was performed in response to a request by the Department of the Interior for a disinterested study in view of the bitter controversy that had been raging over sheep grazing in the reserve. During the summer of 1896 several sheepherders and owners who were grazing sheep on the reserve were arrested under special instructions from the Attorney General of the United States. Later “these cases assumed the form of civil instead of criminal proceedings,” and on September 3 suit was brought in the U.S. District Court of Oregon against several owners to enjoin them from grazing within the reserve. In May 1897, the Attorney General, in view of the expected passage of the Forest Management Act, issued instructions that the injunction suits be discontinued. Thus, subsequent to the passage of the act and the formulation of comprehensive rules and regulations the investigation by Colville was initiated.
After studying the sheep grazing problem in the reserve, Colville rejected the two proposals that had been recommended as remedial measures–the total exclusion of sheep and the abolition of the reserve. Instead he proposed ten recommendations that should be taken at once “to save and perpetuate the timber supply and the water supply of middle Oregon:”
1 . Exclude sheep from specified areas about Mount Hood and Crater Lake.
2. Limit the sheep to be grazed in the reserve to a specified number, based on the number customarily grazed there.
3. Issue five-year permits allowing an owner to graze on a specified tract, limiting the number of sheep to be grazed on that tract, and giving the owner the exclusive grazing right.
4. Require as a condition of each permit that the owner use every effort to prevent and to extinguish fires on his tract, and report in full the cause, extent, and other circumstances connected with each fire.
5. Reserve the right to terminate a permit immediately if convinced that an owner is not showing good faith in the protection of the forests.
6. In the allotment of tracts secure the cooperation of the wool-growers association of Crook, Sherman, and Wasco counties through a commission of three stockmen, who shall receive written applications for range, adjudicate them, and make recommendations, these recommendations to be reviewed by the forest officer and finally passed upon by the Secretary of the Interior.
7. Ask the county associations to bear the expenses of the commission.
8. Charge the cost of administration of the system to the owners in the form of fees for the permits.
9. If the woolgrowers decline to accept and to cooperate in the proposed system, exclude sheep absolutely from the reserve.
10. If after five years’ trial of the system forest fires continue unchecked, exclude sheep thereafter from the reserve.
Relative to the area around Crater Lake and Mount Hood that he wished to see closed to sheep grazing, Colville stated:
The first step toward a satisfactory system of sheep-grazing regulations in the Cascade Reserve is to provide absolute protection for those places which the people of the State require as public resorts or for reservoir purposes. The grandeur of the natural scenery of the Cascades is coming to be better known. Even before the forest reserve was created a movement was on foot to have the Mount Hood region and the Crater Lake region set aside as national parks, and since the reserve was created the eminent desirability and propriety of the earlier movement has been clearly recognized, both in the continued efforts of the people to keep sheep from grazing in these regions and in the concession in the petition of the sheep owners that if the Cascade Reserve as a whole be abolished the Crater Lake and Mount Hood regions be maintained as smaller and separate reserves on which sheep be not allowed to graze. . . .
In terms of how much land should be included in the closed area at Crater Lake, he recommended:
After going twice carefully over the ground at Crater Lake and consulting with various men well informed on the subject, especially Capt. O.C. Applegate, of Klamath Falls, I question whether a better area can be adopted than that covered by the special Crater Lake contour map, published by the United States Geological Survey, which extends from longitude 122° to 122° 15′, and from latitude 42° 50′ to 43° 04′. At present no sheep are grazed in the vicinity of Crater Lake, but for a few years up to and including 1896 a small amount of summer grazing was carried on in the watershed of Anna Creek and that of the upper Rogue River. [37]
