The St. Johns herald., 1894-01-04
AGREAT WESTERN LAKE.
Legends Make it the Homo Of a
 Monstrous Sea Serpent.
1t Is Twelve Miles Long and No One Has Ever Sounded Its Bottom Situated in a ceep Canyon in PaIOuse
 County, Washington.
Lone before mankind ever heard of

Long before mankind ever heard of tais lrls aaral aaa scared it's con quest -1O1-4 =-.- ..lo--s----. t-e la coma Ledgcr, L4e area t----- -olF Is t.i5- tinguished by tle na1a. OI Ialou5e county had been subjocccI to violent upheavals and radical Changes in to- pography. 4 great inland sea rested here for many centuries and the chem ical action of the water enriched the soil simultaneously with lcveliHg the sediment in the form Of Q vast plain. Internal convul5ions, whether from volcanic action or from shrinllaGe of the planet consequent upon the cool ing process then going on-pcrhaps both combine d-raised the submerged plain high and dry, with steep de- cline to the westward. The rushing food cut the la nd into ridges and ra- vines, high bluffs and lonely rocks be- ing scattered promise uously in living evidence of the revolution. The sur face thus presents a broken and pictur- esque scene. Chief among the won derful products of these prehistoric con vulsions and deluges is a canyon over
 
 county containing Rock lake, sheet of water twelve miles long by about one hundred rods wide, bordered by cliffs ascending erpendicularly to heights of seventeen hundred to twenty-five hundred feet.
 The canyon of Rock lake runs east to west. It is deep hole in a plateau of solid rock and the bottom has never been sounded by man. The eastward extremity falls abruptly from the bed of small creek, down and down five hundred feet, over a cascade, down another plunge of six hundred feet, and finally off over a second cascade three hundred feet to the bottom. Above the land rolls away in small heaps of stone and barren slopes for five miles on either side. Down at the bottom is valley, one by three miles in extent, and covered with the prettiest coat of tropical foliage to be found anywhere. The climate in this declivity is as trop- ical and delightful as that which gives Hawaii an envied fame all the world over. The temperature seldom falls below sixty degrees Fahrenheit and rarely goes above ninety. The cold of winter is seemingly unable to reach the level of the valley, owing to the internal warmth naturally belong ing to a hole so deep. The heat of summer is tempered by the cooling in- 1uences of the lake adjoining. The west end of this little Garden of Eden jumps abruptly over a precipice one hundred feet into Rock lake, and the western end of the lake, twelve miles farther on, finds an outlet through a mar row passageway between hills sloping sharply and soon breaking n1to dis membered pyramids of basalt rock.
 The surface of Rock lake is not much above sea level, and the unfathonable depth of the water, clear as crystal, connected with weird surroundings, affords theme for philosophic medi- tatio1 not surpassed by the sublime ruggedness of the Alps.
 An Indian legend of this remarkable lake makes it the home of a mOnstrous sea serpent. The remnants of the red tribes which used to frequent its shores tell their white neighbors that no In- dian can venture into the water either for bath or a pleasure trip in a canoe without being swallowed whole by the hideous reptile, and to this day the aborigines look upon Rock lake with the same apprehension that an old time orthodox ponders over the terrors of purgatory. Their legend declares that an entire tribe was laShed to de- struction and eaten not many centuries ago, all to satisfy the greed of this very monster. At another time, dur ing the outbreaks quelled by Col. Steptoe in 1858, band of noble red men, in their efforts to escape the viz ilance of Uncle Sam's bluecoats, tried to conceal themselves above the lake in tine little paradise but were over taken by the great fish, the legend avows, and sent to eternity.