Chapter I: Preface (1)

In the preparation of this book the author has had in mind the needs of the upper grammar grades. The subject matter has not been selected with the object of covering the field of Western geography in a systematic manner, but instead the attempt has been made to picture as graphically as may be some of its more striking and interesting physical features, and the influence which these features have exerted upon its discovery and settlement.

Those subjects have been presented which have more than local interest and are illustrative of world-wide principles. Clear conceptions of the earth and man's relation to it are not gained by general statements as readily as by the comprehensive study of concrete examples.

Nowhere outside of the Cordilleran region are to be found so remarkable illustrations of the growth and destruction of physical features, or so clear examples of the control which physical features exercise over the paths of exploration, settlement, and industrial development.

The fact that the West furnishes a wealth of material for geography teaching has long been recognized in a general way, although there has been but little attempt to present this material in a form suitable for the use of schools.

The illustrations are, with few exceptions, from the author's own photographs, and the descriptions are made up from his personal observations. Since the illustrations are numerous and have been selected with much care, it is hoped that they will add greatly to the value of the text. They should be _used_, and a proper understanding of the pictures made a part of every lesson.

CONTENTS

THE WORK OF THE COLORADO RIVER

A TRIP INTO THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO

HOW THE COLUMBIA PLATEAU WAS MADE

THE CAÑONS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

AN OREGON GLACIER

SOMETHING ABOUT EARTHQUAKES AND MOUNTAIN BUILDING

THE LAST VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

THE MUD VOLCANOES OF THE COLORADO DESERT

THE HISTORY OF A COAST LINE

THE DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER

THE GREAT BASIN AND ITS PECULIAR LAKES

FRÉMONT'S ADVENTURES IN THE GREAT BASIN

THE STORY OF GREAT SALT LAKE

THE SKAGIT RIVER

THE STORY OF LAKE CHELAN

THE NATIVE INHABITANTS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE

THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK

THE RUSSIANS IN CALIFORNIA

DEATH VALLEY

THE CLIFF DWELLERS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

THE LIFE OF THE DESERT

THE PONY EXPRESS

HOW CLIMATE AND PHYSICAL FEATURES INFLUENCED THE SETTLEMENT OF THE WEST

THE LIFE OF THE PROSPECTOR

GOLD AND GOLD-MINING

COPPER-MINING

COAL AND PETROLEUM

THE CLIMATE OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE

SOMETHING ABOUT IRRIGATION

THE LOCATION OF THE CITIES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE

THE FOREST BELT OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

THE NATIONAL PARKS AND FOREST RESERVES

THE WESTERN UNITED STATES

THE WORK OF THE COLORADO RIVER

The Colorado River is not old, as we estimate the age of rivers. It was born when the Rocky Mountains were first uplifted to the sky, when their lofty peaks, collecting the moisture of the storms, sent streams dashing down to the plains below. Upon the western slope of the mountains a number of these streams united in one great river, which wound here and there, seeking the easiest route across the plateau to the Gulf of California.

At first the banks of the river were low, and its course was easily turned one way or another. From the base of the mountains to the level of the ocean there is a fall of more than a mile, so that the river ran swiftly and was not long in making for itself a definite channel.

Many thousands of years passed. America was discovered. The Spaniards conquered Mexico and sent expeditions northward in search of the cities of Cibola, where it was said that gold and silver were abundant. One of these parties is reported to have reached a mighty cañon, into which it was impossible to descend. The cañon was so deep that rocks standing in the bottom, which were in reality higher than the Seville cathedral, appeared no taller than a man.

Another party discovered the mouth of the river and called it, because of their safe arrival, The River of Our Lady of Safe Conduct. They went as far up the river as its shallow waters would permit, but failed to find the seven cities of which they were in search, and turned about and went back to Mexico. For years afterward the river remained undisturbed, so far as white men were concerned. A great part of the stream was unknown even to the Indians, for the barren plateaus upon either side offered no inducements to approach.

Trappers and explorers in the Rocky Mountains reached the head waters of the river nearly one hundred years ago, and followed the converging branches down as far as they dared toward the dark and forbidding cañons. It was believed that no boat could pass through the cañons, and that once launched upon those turbid waters, the adventurer would never be able to return.

The Colorado remained a river of mystery for nearly three centuries after its discovery. When California and New Mexico had become a part of the Union, about the middle of the last century, the cañon of the Colorado was approached at various points by government exploring parties, which brought back more definite reports concerning the rugged gorge through which the river flows.

In 1869 Major Powell, at the head of a small party, undertook the dangerous trip through the cañon by boat. After enduring great hardships for a number of weeks, the party succeeded in reaching the lower end of the cañon. Major Powell's exploit has been repeated by only one other company, and some members of this party perished before the dangerous feat was accomplished.

The work of a river]

The Colorado is a wonderful stream. It is fed by the perpetual snows of the Rocky Mountains. For some distance the tributary streams flow through fertile valleys, many of them now richly and widely cultivated. But soon the branches unite in one mighty river which, seeming to shun life and sunlight, buries itself so deeply in the great plateau that the traveller through this region may perish in sight of its waters without being able to descend far enough to reach them. After passing through one hundred miles of cañon, the river emerges upon a desert region, where the rainfall is so slight that curious and unusual forms of plants and animals have been developed, forms which are adapted to withstand the almost perpetual sunshine and scorching heat of summer.

Below the Grand Cañon the river traverses an open valley, where the bottom lands support a few Indians who raise corn, squashes, and other vegetables. At the Needles the river is hidden for a short time within cañon walls, but beyond Yuma the valley widens, and the stream enters upon vast plains over which it flows to its mouth in the Gulf of California.

No portion of the river is well adapted to navigation. Below the cañon the channels are shallow and ever changing. At the mouth, enormous tides sweep with swift currents over the shallows and produce foam-decked waves known as the "bore."

Visit the Colorado River whenever you will, at flood time in early summer, or in the fall and winter when the waters are lowest, you will always find it deeply discolored. The name "Colorado" signifies red, and was given to the river by the Spaniards. Watch the current and note how it boils and seethes. It seems to be thick with mud. The bars are almost of the same color as the water and are continually changing. Here a low alluvial bank is being washed away, there a broad flat is forming. With the exception of the Rio Grande in New Mexico, and the Gila, which joins the Colorado at Yuma, no other river is known to be so laden with silt. No other river is so rapidly removing the highlands through which it flows.

Over a large portion of the watershed of the Colorado the rainfall is light. This fact might lead one to think that upon its slopes the work of erosion would go on more slowly than where the rainfall is heavy. This would, however, be a wrong conclusion, for in places where there is a great deal of rain the ground becomes covered with a thick growth of vegetation which holds the soil and broken rock fragments and keeps them from being carried away.

The surface of the plateaus and lower mountain slopes in the basin of the Colorado are but little protected by vegetation. When the rain does fall in this arid region, it often comes with great violence. The barren mountain sides are quickly covered with trickling streams, which unite in muddy torrents in the gulches, carrying along mud, sand, and even boulders in their rapid course; the torrents in turn deliver a large part of their loads to the river. As the rain passes, the gulches become dry and remain so until another storm visits the region. It is storming somewhere within the basin of the Colorado much of the time, for the river drains two hundred and twenty-three thousand square miles. So it comes about that whether one visits the river in winter or summer one always finds it loaded with mud.

But what becomes of all this mud? The river cannot drop it in the narrow cañons. It is not until the river has carried its load of mud down to the region about its mouth, where the current becomes sluggish, that the heavy brown burden can be discharged. Dip up a glassful of the water near the mouth of the river, and let it settle, then carefully remove the clear water and allow the sediment in the bottom to dry. If the water in the glass was six inches deep, there will finally remain in the bottom a mass of hardened mud, which will vary in amount with the time of the year in which the experiment is performed, but will average about one-fiftieth of an inch in thickness. Each cubic foot of the water, then, must contain nearly six cubic inches of solid sediment or silt.

It has been estimated that the average flow of the Colorado River at Yuma throughout the year is eighteen thousand cubic feet of water per second. From this fact we can calculate that there would be deposited at the mouth of the river every year, enough sediment to lie one foot deep over sixty-six square miles of territory. Nearly one three-hundredth part of the Colorado River water is silt, while in the case of the Mississippi the silt forms only one part in twenty-nine hundred.

Now we are prepared to understand the origin of the vast lowlands about the head of the Gulf of California. Long ago this gulf extended one hundred and fifty miles farther north than it does at present, so that it reached nearly to the place where the little town of Indio now stands in the northern end of the Colorado desert.

When the Colorado River first began to flow, it emptied its waters into the gulf not far from the spot where Yuma is situated. The water was probably loaded with silt then as it is now. Part of this sediment was dropped at the mouth of the stream, while part was spread by the currents over the bottom of the adjoining portions of the gulf. The rapidly growing delta crept southward and westward into the gulf. As fast as the sediment was built up above the reach of the tide, vegetation appeared, which, retarding the flow of the water at times of flood, aided the deposition of silt and the building up of the delta.

As the centuries went by, these lowland plains became more and more extensive, until the gulf was actually divided into two parts by the spreading of the delta across to the western shore. The portion of the gulf thus cut off from the ocean formed a salt lake fully one hundred miles in length.

We may suppose that for a long time before the barrier was high and strong, the tidal currents occasionally broke over the delta and supplied the lake with water. As the river meandered here and there over the flat delta, its channels must have undergone many changes at every time of flood. A part of the water without doubt flowed into the salt lake, and another portion into the open gulf. In fact, the basin in which the lake lay, now known as the Colorado desert, continued to receive water from the river, at intervals, until very recently. In 1891 an overflow occurred, through the channel known as New River, which flooded the lower portion of the basin and threatened to cover the railroad.

When the ocean had been permanently shut off from the head of the gulf, and the river itself had been largely diverted toward the south, the lake began to dry up. At last, most of the water disappeared and there remained a vast desert basin, at its greatest depth two hundred and fifty feet below the level of the ocean. In the bottom of the basin a bed of salt appeared, for this substance could not be carried away, as the water had been, by the thirsty air.

Remarkably perfect beaches still exist around the shores of this old lake, and on them are found the pearly shells of multitudes of fresh-water mollusks. The presence of these shells leads us to believe that after the salt lake dried up, the river again broke in and formed a new lake of comparatively fresh water which also, after a time, dried up.

The wonderful fertility of the Colorado delta is just beginning to be appreciated. Canals have been dug to take the water from the river and distribute it over the land. Year by year the cultivated lands are being extended. The change which irrigation is making upon the surface of one of the worst deserts in the country is indeed remarkable.

The Colorado River is working on quietly and steadily. We may think, and truly, that it has already done a great at work in excavating the mighty cañons along its course, but, in reality, the work already accomplished is small in comparison with that which remains to be done.

In time, if the land is not disturbed by the forces which build mountains, the plateaus through which the river now flows in such deep cañons will be carried away in the form of sand and mud. Broad valleys will replace the cañons, and the Gulf of California will become a fertile plain. As the highlands wear away the process will go on more and more slowly, for there will be less rainfall. The river will become smaller and its basin more arid. All these changes will be brought about through the crumbling of the rocks, and the removal of the waste matter by the running water.

A TRIP INTO THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO

We may read of the Colorado plateau, and of the Grand Cañon with its precipitous walls of variously colored rock, but unless we actually visit this wonderland, it is hard to realize the height and extent of the plateau and the depth of the gashes made in its surface by running water, gashes so deep that they seem to expose the very heart of the earth.

Nature has chosen a remote and half-desert region for the location of this, the most picturesque cañon in the world, as if she wished to keep it as long as possible from the eyes of men. Once a traveller could not view the cañon without making a long and weary journey across hundreds of miles of desert; now it is quite different, for one can almost look into its depths from the windows of a palace car. But to appreciate and understand fully the stupendous work that nature has done throughout this region we must leave the cars at a somewhat distant point, and before reaching the cañon become acquainted with the country in which it lies through the old-fashioned ways of travelling on horseback or wagon.

Flagstaff was formerly the starting-point for travellers to the cañon, and we will choose it now, for the old stage road offers an interesting ride. The road first winds around that lofty snow-clad peak, the San Francisco Mountain, which can be seen from all northern Arizona. Leaving the mountain behind, we strike out directly across the high plateau. The country is nearly level, and the open park-like forest extends in every direction as far as one can see.

It is difficult for us to believe that we are seven thousand feet above the sea, a height greater than that of the highest mountains in the United States east of the Mississippi Valley. It is this elevation, however, which brings the summer showers and makes the air cool and pleasant, for the lowlands of this portion of the United States are barren deserts, upon which the sun beats with almost savage heat.

After the rainy season green grass and an abundance of flowers appear in the open meadows scattered through the forest. But, as a rule, the entire absence of water strikes one as being very strange. Where are the springs and running streams which usually abound in mountainous regions? Throughout the whole distance of seventy miles from Flagstaff to the cañon, there are but one or two spots where water is to be found. These places are known as "water-holes"; they are simply hollows in the surface of the ground where the water collects after the showers.

There is another strange feature about the plateau over which the road leads; instead of sloping down toward the Colorado River and the Grand Cañon, the surface slowly rises, so that the little streams which are formed after the heavy rains flow away from the river.

Our journey draws to an end, but there is nothing to indicate the presence of the cañon until we get glimpses through the trees of an apparently bottomless gulf. The gulf widens upon a closer view, we reach the edge, and all its wonderful proportions burst upon us. Does the Grand Cañon look as you thought it would? Probably not, for it is unlike any other in the world. The cañon is very deep. The river has worn its way for more than a mile down into the plateau, which once stretched unbroken from the cliffs upon which we stand, across to those upon the opposite side, nearly ten miles away.

The clear air makes objects upon the opposite side and in the bottom of the cañon seem much nearer than they really are. You may think that it is an easy task to go to the bottom of the cañon and climb back again in a day, but in reality it is so difficult an undertaking that only those who are accustomed to mountain climbing can accomplish it.

It is not merely the great width and depth of the cañon that impress us, but also the bright, variegated colors which the different rock layers display as they stretch in horizontal bands along the faces of the cliffs, or sweep around the towers and pinnacles until their detailed outlines are lost in the distant blue haze.

Our eyes wander far down, toward the bottom of the cañon, following the alternate lines of precipitous cliffs and slopes covered with rock fragments. The cliffs and slopes succeed each other like the steps in a giant stairway, until at the very bottom the opposite walls meet in a gorge so narrow that in only a few places does the river come into view, glistening like a silver thread.

A hotel stands among the trees a short distance from the brink of the cañon. Living here is expensive, for every article of food has to be brought upon the cars and wagons for a distance of hundreds of miles. Even the water has to be brought in wagons from a distant spring.

In visiting the cañon we have the choice of going on horseback or on foot. While the latter method is much harder, yet one feels safer upon his own feet while moving along the steep and narrow trail. Our start is made in the cool air of the early morning. Leaving the top of the plateau, where among the pines the summer air is seldom sultry, and the winters are cold and snowy, we descend, until, by luncheon time, we are far below the heights and in the midst of an almost tropical climate. This difference in climatic features between the top and bottom of the cañon is equal to the change which the traveller experiences in a trip from the pine forests of the northern United States to the cactus-covered plains of Arizona.

As we look down from the top of the trail it does not seem possible to pass the great cliffs below, and yet there must be a way, since others have gone before us. All that we have to do is simply to follow the beaten path. Nature has conveniently left narrow shelves, crevices, and less precipitous slopes here and there, which need only the application of the pick and shovel to be made passable even for pack animals. Where the trail winds into shady recesses, we find stunted fir and pine trees clinging to the crevices and stretching their roots down into the waste rock collected upon projecting ledges.

Down, down we go. The belt of the yellow pine and fir is left behind, and we come to the habitat of the piñon pine and juniper. These two will flourish where there is less moisture than is needed by the trees which grow nearer the top. Soon the trees have all disappeared and such plants as the greasewood, cactus, and agave take their place. Here, if it were not for the walls of rock rising on every hand, we might imagine ourselves upon one of the desert plains of Arizona.

New views open at every turn in the trail, as it winds along the narrow shelves of rock with precipitous walls above and below. Now it zigzags back and forth down a gentle slope, but is soon stopped by another precipice. In one place, to escape a rocky point, the trail has been carried around the face of a cliff on a sort of shelf made of logs. It then passes through a crevice formed by the splitting away of a huge piece of the wall. In many places the grade is so steep that the trail is made practically a stairway, for the steps are necessary to keep animals from slipping.

Step by step we descend until the slope becomes more gentle and a sort of terrace is reached, where men are at work developing a copper mine. Everything needed for the mine is carried down packed upon the backs of sure-footed burros. Even the water has to be brought in kegs from a little spring still deeper in the cañon.

The trail leaves the mine and winds down past another cliff, until, when more than three thousand feet from the top of the plateau, we find water for the first time. The little springs issue from the sandstone, and their limited supply of water is soon drunk up by the thirsty sands.

As far as the water flows it forms a little oasis upon the barren slope. Along the course of the streams are little patches of green grass, flowers, and bushes. Birds flit about, and there are tracks of small animals in the mud. Evidently the water is as great an attraction to them as it is to us. If a well were dug in the plateau above, we can understand now how deep it would have to be in order to reach water. A well three-fourths of a mile deep would be a difficult one to pump.

We are now in the bottom of the main cañon, but deeper still is the last and inner gorge, through which the Colorado is flowing. For thousands of centuries the river has been sawing its way down into the earth. The precipitous cliffs which we have passed are formed of hard sandstone or limestone. The more gentle slopes consist of softer shales. Now the river has cut through them all and has reached the very heart of the earth, the solid granite.

This inner gorge has almost vertical walls twelve hundred to fifteen hundred feet high. We can sit upon the brink under a ledge of rock which protects us from the hot sun, and watch the river as we eat our luncheon. Far below, almost directly under us, it rushes along. The roar of the current rises but faintly to our ears. The water is very muddy and not at all like the clear mountain streams, far away upon the continental divide, which unite to form the river. It seems as if the water, ashamed of its soiled appearance, wanted to hide from the sight of men. If so, it has succeeded well, for it can be seen only at rare intervals from the top of the cañon walls, and even at the bottom of the main cañon the river itself is not visible unless one stands upon the very brink of the granite gorge.

The work of the river is not yet done. It will go on until the great cliffs have crumbled and have been replaced by gentle slopes. It will not stop until, at some far distant time, a broad valley has been worn out of the rocky strata.

The cañon appears much wider when viewed from the bottom than from the top, and the great cliffs far back along the trail seem less precipitous, but only because they are so far away. A weary climb of several miles awaits us. We must rest and take breath frequently or we shall not reach the top.

As night approaches and the shadows begin to fall, every turret and pinnacle stands out in bold relief. The bands of yellow and red shade into purple, and everything, save the long winding trail, begins to have a weird and mystical look.

HOW THE COLUMBIA PLATEAU WAS MADE

Years ago people disputed as to the way in which the earth was made. Those who lived where all the rocks had, like lava, the appearance of having once been melted, believed that fire had done all the work. Those who lived where the rocks appeared to be formed of hardened mud, sand, and lime, substances such as we find accumulating under water, said that water alone had been the means. But in later years the earth's surface has been more widely explored, and now it is known that both opinions were partly right. Water and fire have both been concerned in the making of the earth.

In the great valleys fire-formed rocks are rare, but they are more or less abundant in all mountainous regions, for where mountains are, there the crust of the earth is weakest. There are many reasons for believing that the interior of the earth is very hot. We know that the surface is settling in some places and rising in others, and that where the strain of the upheaval is too great the rocks are broken. These convulsions sometimes cause earthquakes and sometimes volcanic eruptions, when enormous quantities of molten rock are poured out over the surface. In all the long history of our earth probably no greater flood of lava than that which made the Columbia plateau was ever spread over the surface of any region. Travel where you will over the plains of southern Idaho, central Washington, or Oregon, and examine the rocks which here and there rise above the soil or are exposed in the cañons, and you will find that they all appear to have been formed by fire.

Just beginning to cut a cañon in the volcanic plateau]

These rocks are dark in color and very hard. They are not arranged in regular layers like sandstone and shale; many of them show numerous little cavities which once contained steam. These cavities give to the rock a slag-like appearance. In this kind of rock, which we shall call lava, there are, of course, no remains of shells or bones of animals such as are often found in rocks formed from sand or clay.

Do not picture to yourself the Columbia plateau as one continuous stretch of level land, for it is broken by many mountain ranges. Some of these are old mountains which were too tall to be buried by the lava, but most of them have been formed out of the plateau itself. The eruptions which made the plateau extended through a very long time, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, and the older lava is deeply decayed and covered with soil. Some of the later flows show extremely rough and rugged surfaces and are probably only a few hundred years old.

Long ago, before the eruptions began, the geography of the Northwest was very different from what it is now. Instead of a vast plateau there were mountains and valleys. Lowlands occupied most of the region where the Cascade Range now rises with its lofty volcanic peaks. Portions of the basin of the present Columbia River were occupied by lakes which extended southwest into California.

Movements of the earth began to affect the region of the present plateau, and at many points the solid rocks were fissured and broken. Then from that mysterious region far beneath the surface came steam and gases, escaping through the fissures with explosive force. In some places cinder cones were built about the openings by the fragments of lava which were hurled out. In other places, during periods of less explosive eruption, molten lava flowed out in vast quantities. The lava was very hot and almost as liquid as water, so that it spread in thin sheets over hundreds of square miles of lowland.

One important series of fissures through which eruptions took place marked the line where the Cascade Range was to be built. Other volcanoes appeared over the surface of southern Idaho, central Washington, Oregon, and northeastern California.

The eruptions were not continuous over the whole field; now in this place, now in that, there came long periods of quiet. During such periods the earthquakes ceased, the lava became cold, and the clouds of volcanic ashes cleared from the air. Frequently the lava intercepted streams and blocked the valleys so that large lakes were formed. Whenever the periods of quiet were very long, plants spread over the surface and animals of many kinds made their homes about the lakes.

In eastern Oregon the John Day River and its branches have eroded cañons through the later lava and have exposed the sands, clays, and gravels which collected at the bottom of one of those ancient lakes. In these beds the skeletons of many strange and interesting animals have been found. Evidently they had once lived about the borders of the lake, and the streams had washed their bones into the water and mingled them with the sediment.

Formed by springs issuing from underneath the lava of the plateau]

One of these animals appears to have been an ancestor of the present horse. It was about the size of a sheep, and had three toes instead of one. Another, probably a very dangerous animal, was related to our present hog, but stood nearly seven feet high. Others resembled the rhinoceros, camel, tapir, or peccary. All but the peccary are now extinct upon this continent. Of the carnivorous animals there were wolves and cats of large size.

The eruptions continued, filling the valleys little by little, until in places the lava reached a thickness of nearly four thousand feet. The lower mountains were hidden from sight. We know of the existence of these buried mountains because the wearing away of the lava in some places has exposed their summits to view.

The lava flood reached farther and farther. In southern Idaho it formed the Snake River plains, which must have been, when first formed, hundreds of miles long, seventy-five miles wide, and almost as even as a floor. If we could have looked on while these things were taking place it would have appeared as if the whole land was about to sink under the fiery mass which flowed out of the earth. The streams and valleys were completely buried. The region of the John Day Lake, with all its animal remains, was covered. The lava, like a sea, crept up against the mountains surrounding the plateau region. Bays of lava extended into the valleys among the mountains, while mountain ridges rose like islands and capes from the surface of the flood.

We never tire of looking at the lofty snow-capped peaks of the Cascade Range. A dozen of them rise over ten thousand feet, and two, Mounts Shasta and Ranier, are more than fourteen thousand feet high. All these mountains were formed of material thrown out of the interior of the earth during the building of the Columbia plateau. The process was very similar for each. About some one exceptionally active crater immense quantities of scoriæ[1] and lapilli[2] accumulated. Then came streams of fiery lava, some of which, hardening upon the outer slopes of the crater, added still more to the growth of the mountain. The process was very slow, however. A time of eruption, marked by tremblings of the earth, explosive noises, and a sky filled with dust and clouds, might last for many years. Then came a long period of rest when the falling rains, gathering in dashing torrents, cut deep gullies down the sides of the mountain.

[Footnote 1: _scorioe_, cellular, slaggy lava.]

[Footnote 2: _lapilli_, volcanic ashes, consisting of small, angular, stony fragments.]

The plateau is built of layers of lava]

The volcanoes at last ceased to grow any higher, for the lava, if the eruptions continued, formed new craters at their bases. It is probable that all these great peaks have been extinct for several thousand years, although some are much older and more worn away than others. One of these volcanoes has completely disappeared, and in its place lies that wonderful sheet of water known as Crater Lake. It is thought that the interior of this mountain was melted away during a period of activity, and that the outer portion fell in, leaving a crater five miles across and nearly a mile deep.

The streams of lava, as they flowed here and there building up the plateau, frequently broke up the rivers and turned them into new channels. As time went on the eruptions were less violent, and the rivers became established in the channels which they occupy to-day. The Columbia River, winding about over the plateau, sought the easiest path to the sea. It soon began to dig a channel, and now has hidden itself between dark walls of lava.

But other forces besides the streams were now at work in this volcanic region. The lava plateau began slowly to bend upward along the line of the great volcanoes, lifting them upward with it. In this manner the Cascade Range was formed. The Columbia River, instead of seeking another way to the sea, continued cutting its channel deeper and deeper into the growing mountain range, and so has given us that picturesque cañon which forms a most convenient highway from the interior of Washington and Oregon to the coast.

Take a sheet of writing paper, lay it upon an even surface, then slowly push the opposite edges toward each other. This simple experiment will aid one in understanding one of the ways in which mountain ranges are made. Besides the upward fold of the plateau which made the Cascade Range, another was formed between the Blue Mountains in eastern Oregon and a spur of the Rocky Mountains in northern Idaho. This fold lay across the path of the Snake River, but its movement was so slow that the river kept its former channel and in this rising land excavated a cañon which to-day is more than a mile deep. The upper twenty-five hundred feet of the cañon are cut into the lava of the plateau, and the lower three thousand into the underlying granite. The cañon is not so picturesque as the Colorado, for it has no rocks with variegated coloring or castellated walls. Its sides are, however, exceedingly precipitous and it is difficult to enter.

Along portions of the lower Columbia and Snake rivers, navigation is obstructed by rapids and waterfalls. The presence of these falls teaches us that these streams are still at work cutting their channels deeper. The Snake River in its upper course has as yet cut only a very shallow channel in the hard lava, and the beautiful Shoshone Falls marks a point where its work is slow. These falls, which are the finest in the northwest, owe their existence to the fact that at this particular spot layers of strong resistant lava cover the softer rocks.

There are other cañons in the plateau region which are fully as remarkable as those which have been mentioned. That of the Des Chutes River in central Oregon is in places a thousand feet deep, with almost vertical walls of lava.

We have already seen how mountains have been formed upon the Columbia plateau, by a bending of the earth upward. Other mountains of the plateau are due to fractures in the solid rocks, often many miles long. Upon one side of these fractures the surface has been depressed, while upon the other it has been raised. The amount of the uplift varies from a few hundred to thousands of feet. The mountains thus formed have a long, gentle slope upon one side and a very steep incline upon the other. They are known as "block mountains," and those upon the Columbia plateau are the most interesting of their kind in the world.

With the exception of a few large rivers, the greater portion of the Columbia plateau is remarkable for its lack of surface streams. The water which reaches the borders of the plateau from the surrounding mountains often sinks into the gravel between the layers of lava and forms underground rivers. The deep cañons which have been mentioned intercept some of these underground rivers, so that their waters pour out and down over the sides of the cañons in foaming cascades. The greatest of these cascades is that known as the Thousand Springs in the Snake River cañon. The waters of the Blue Lakes in the cañon of the same river below Shoshone Falls also come from underneath the lava. They are utilized in irrigating the most picturesque fruit ranch in southern Idaho.

Eroded in the Columbia plateau]

The climate of the plateau is dry, and its eastern portion is practically a desert. Toward the west, however, the rainfall is greater, and in central Washington and northern Oregon the plateau becomes one vast grain-field. It is difficult to irrigate the plateau because the streams flow in such deep cañons, but above the point where the cañon of the Snake River begins there is an extensive system of canals and cultivated fields. With a sufficient water supply, the lava makes one of the richest and most productive of soils. Along the Snake and Columbia rivers, wherever there is a bit of bottom land, orchards have been planted. Little steamers ply along these rivers between the rapids, gathering the fruit and delivering it at the nearest railroad point.

Mining is carried on only in the mountains which rise above the lava flood, for the mineral veins are for the most part older than the lava of the plateau. We are certain that many very valuable deposits of the precious metals lie buried beneath the lava fields.

It is thought that the volcanic history of the Columbia plateau has been completed. Now the streams are at work carrying away the materials of which it is composed and may in time uncover the old buried land surface.

THE CAÑONS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

The western half of our country contains the deepest and most picturesque cañons in the world. Those of the Colorado and Snake rivers form trenches in a comparatively level but lofty plateau region. The cañons of the Sierra Nevada Range, on the contrary, take their rise and extend for much of their length among rugged snowcapped peaks which include some of the highest mountains in the United States. All these cañons are the work of erosion. The rivers did not find depressions formed ready for them to occupy, but had to excavate their channels by the slow process of grinding away the solid rock.

The streams of the Sierra Nevada mountains begin their course in steep-walled alcoves under the shadows of the high peaks, where they are fed by perpetual snow-banks. Soon they bury themselves between granite walls, which at last tower three thousand feet above their roaring waters. After many miles the cañons widen, the walls decrease in height, and the streams come out upon the fertile stretches of the Great Valley of California.

Nature works in many ways. Her tools are of different kinds, but the most important one is running water. The forms which she produces are dependent upon the kind of rock upon which she works. Where the surface of the earth is soft the results of her labor are not very interesting, but if the crust is hard the forms which she produces are often so remarkable that they arouse our wonder and admiration.

In shaping the Sierra Nevada mountains Nature had a grand opportunity. Here she produced the Yosemite Valley, which has a setting of cliffs and waterfalls that attract people from all over the world. Hetch-Hetchy Valley at the north of the Yosemite, and Tehipite and King's River cañons at the south, are interesting places, but not so majestic and inspiring as the Yosemite.

Nature never seems satisfied with her work. After she has created a piece of wonderful scenery she proceeds to destroy it. The great cliffs of the Yosemite will sometime lose their grandeur and be replaced by gentle slopes down which the streams will flow quietly. The mountains of the Laurentian highlands in the northeastern portion of the continent undoubtedly were once lofty and picturesque, but there were no people upon the earth at that time to enjoy this scenery. Now these mountains have become old and are nearly worn down.

The head of the King's River]

In one portion of the earth after another, Nature raises great mountain ranges and immediately proceeds to remove them. This continent was discovered and California was settled at the right time for the Sierra Nevadas to be seen in all their grandeur.

When the pioneers came in sight of the Sierra Nevada (snowy range), they little dreamed of the cañons hidden among these mountains. Gold, and not scenery, was the object of their search. The great cañons were outside of the gold regions, and so inaccessibly situated that no one except the Indians looked upon them until 1851. In that year a party of soldiers following the trail of some thieving Indians discovered and entered the Yosemite Valley, but it was not explored until 1855. For many years the valley could be reached only by the roughest trails, but as its advantages became more widely known roads were built, and there are now three different wagon routes by which it may be entered.

The history of the Yosemite Valley is like that of all the other cañons of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Long ago there were no high mountains in eastern California. If there had been explorers crossing the plains in those days, they would have found no rugged wall shutting them off from the Pacific. There came a time, however, when the surface of the western portion of America was broken by violent earthquake movements, and hundreds of fissures were formed. Some of the earth blocks produced by these fissures were shoved upward, while others were dropped. One enormous block, which was to form the Sierra Nevada, was raised along its eastern edge until it stood several thousand feet above the adjoining country. The movement was like that of a trap-door opened slightly, so that upon one side--in this case the western one--the slope was long and gentle, while upon the east it was very abrupt.

Nature, the sculptor, took this mountain block in hand, and with the aid of running water began to carve its surface into a most intricate system of cañons and ridges. The streams first flowed over the easiest slopes to the Great Valley of California, but soon they began to cut their way down into the granite, while along the crests of the ridges the more resistant rocks began to stand out as jagged peaks.

Thus Nature worked until the mountains promised before long to be well worn down. The cañons had widened to valleys and the rugged slopes had given place to gentle ones. Toward the northern end of the range the work was even farther advanced, for the streams, now choked with gravel and sand, flowed over broad flood plains. In this gravel was buried a part of the wealth of California. The rocks over which the streams flowed contained veins of quartz with little particles of gold scattered through it, and as the surface rock crumbled and was worn away, the gold, being much heavier, slowly accumulated in the gravel at the bottom of the streams. This gold amounted in value to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The forces within the earth became active again. Apparently Nature did not intend that the gold should be forever buried, or that the country should always appear so uninteresting. Internal forces raised the mountain block for a second time, tilting it still more to the westward. Volcanoes broke forth along the summit of the range near the line of fracture, and floods of lava and volcanic mud ran down the slopes, completely filling the broad valleys of the northern Sierras and burying a great part of the gold-bearing gravel.

The eruptions turned the streams from their channels, but on the steeper slope of the mountains the rivers went energetically to work making new beds. They cut down through the lava and the buried gravel until they finally reached the solid rock underneath. Into this rock, which we call "bed-rock," they have now worn cañons two thousand feet deep. The beds of gravel that lay under the old streams frequently form the tops of the hills between these deep cañons. Here they are easily accessible to the miners, who by tunnels or surface workings have taken out many millions of dollars' worth of gold.

The important cañons of the northern Sierras, where the gold is found, have been made by the American and Feather rivers. Farther south are the deeper and more rugged cañons of the Tuolumne, Merced, King's, and Kern rivers, which open to us inviting pathways into the mountains.

It might be supposed that the mantle of snow and ice which at that time covered most of the surface of the earth would have protected it from further erosion, but this was not the case. In the basin at the head of each stream the snow accumulated year after year until it was more than a thousand feet deep. Under the influence of the warm days and cold nights the snow slowly turned to ice, and moved by its own weight, crept down into the cañons. The solid rock walls were ground and polished, and even now, so long a time after the glaciers have melted, some of these polished surfaces still glisten in the sunlight. The glaciers deepened and enlarged the cañons, but running water was the most important agent in their making.

Upon the disappearance of the glaciers, the streams went to work again deepening their cañons. From their starting-points, under the lofty crags, they first ran through broad upland valleys, then tumbled into the cañons; but until they had reached the lower mountain slopes, to which the glaciers had not extended, they passed through a dreary and desolate region devoid of almost every sign of life. The glaciers had swept away all the loose rock and soil, and it was many long years before the surface again crumbled so that forest trees could spread over it once more.

The grandeur and attractiveness of the Yosemite is partly due to the precipitous cliffs enclosing the valley, some of which are nearly four thousand feet in height, partly to the high waterfalls, and partly to the green meadows and forest groves through which the Merced River winds.

Although the glaciers had little to do with the making of the Yosemite Valley, yet they added to its attractiveness. The valley is situated where a number of smaller streams join the Merced River. Erosion was more rapid here because the granite was soft, while the vertical seams in the rock gave the growing valley precipitous walls. When the glacier came it pushed out the loose rocks and boulders, and dropping a portion of them at the lower end, made a dam across the Merced River. At first a shallow lake filled the valley, but after a time the silt and gravel which the streams were continually bringing in filled the lake, and formed marshy flats. Finally, grasses and trees spread over these flats and gave the valley the appearance which it has to-day.

Besides the meadows, the glaciers gave us two of the waterfalls. Yosemite Creek, which comes down over the walls twenty-seven hundred feet in three successive falls, was turned into its present channel by a dam which a glacier had left across its old course. A glacier also turned the Merced River at its entrance to the main valley so as to form the Nevada Fall.

After the valley had been made and clothed in vegetation, it was discovered by a small tribe of Indians who came here to make their home, secure from all their enemies. There were fish in the streams and animals in the woods. The oaks supplied acorns, and in early summer the meadows were covered with strawberries. Legends were associated with many of the cliffs and waterfalls, for the Indians, like ourselves, are impressed by the wonders of Nature.

Hetch-Hetchy Valley, twenty-five miles north of the Yosemite, has been formed upon much the same plan, but a portion of its floor is marshy and there are few waterfalls. King's River Cañon has no green meadows and no high waterfalls, while its great granite walls are not so precipitous as those of the Yosemite. Next to the Yosemite, in the wildness of its scenery, is Tehipite Cañon. This cañon is situated upon the middle fork of King's River, about a hundred miles south. For many miles its walls and domes present ever changing views.

A continual struggle is going on between the forces within the earth and the sculptor working upon its surface. First one, then the other, gains the advantage. Where the mountains are steep and high, often the forces within have recently been active. Where they are low and the slopes are gentle, the sculptor has long held sway. She begins by making the surface as rough and picturesque as possible, but after a time she destroys her own handiwork.

AN OREGON GLACIER

There are records all about us of events which took place upon the earth long before there were any human inhabitants. These records have been preserved in the rocks, in the geographic features of the land and water, and in the distribution of the animals and plants. On every hand appear evidences of changes in the surface of the earth and in the climate.

Through all the central and northern United States, if we except some of the mountains of the West, the winter snows entirely disappear long before the coming of summer. But the climate of this region has not always been so pleasant and mild. Lands now densely peopled were once buried under a thick mantle of ice which lasted through many thousands of years.

Scattered over the surface of the northern United States are vast numbers of boulders and rock fragments which are not at all like the solid rocks beneath the soil. The history of these materials takes us back to the Glacial period, which can be best understood from a study of some one of the glaciers now existing upon the mountains of the northwestern part of our country.

Among the lofty mountain ranges of the Cordilleran region there are many peaks upon which perpetual snow-banks nestle, defying the long summer days. Where the winters are long and cold and the storms are severe, immense drifts of snow collect in the hollows and cañons of the mountain slopes. Each summer all or a part of this snow melts. Upon the northern slopes the melting process is slower, and if there happens to be a large basin upon that side, an extensive field of snow remains until the winter storms come again. Each winter new snow is added to the surface, while the older snow, becoming hard and firm through repeated freezing and thawing, at last turns to ice.