Steam rising from Crater Lake
Popular Science News
By Popular Science News Editor
October, 1902
Parties who have just reached Portland, Oregon, from the famous Crater Lake, report that great clouds of steam were seen rising from the waters, while they were encamped upon the shores.
Crater Lake is situated in the heart of the Cascade range, in Klamath county, southeastern Oregon. Countless years ago Mount Mazama was an active volcano, so geologists have decided.
Finally, the whole interior of the mountain collapsed, forming an immense elliptical basin thousands of feet deep. Only the outer rim of the mountain near its base was left. In time the volcano ceased, the fires were extinguished and the colossal basin filled with water, thus creating, Crater Lake. The lake is about seven miles long and 3 1/2 wide. Great butting cliffs tower aloft above the lake’s surface, rising in places 2,000 feet high. Soundings show this lake to he 2,700 feet in the deepest place.
No visible stream empties into this lake, though it must be fed by hidden springs. Rogue river rises in Crater Lake. This lake is one of the most wonderful bodies on the American continent, and is visited annually by many hundreds of tourists and sightseers. The party that were visiting the lake positively assert that great white clouds of steam were seen to rise from the lake and hover over its bosom. The waters also seemed strangely perturbed at times. Great public interest is felt and expressed in the startling report.
Crater Lake and the the craters of Mounts Pelee and Soufriere before their eruption, as can be seen by a comparison of photographs, are very similar. At one time of the year all that portion of the mountains occupied by Crater Lake is uninhabitable. the winters snow being yet almost too deep to admit hunters and camping parties-the’ only persons who now visit the lake.
J. Mayne Baltimore.
