The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-07

| liiC 5i 5idhitt dHu uHucIlylIS lOTIHdllODS OL
 the Cascade range give evidence of be- | longing to various ages and classes. There | are some lavas yet to be found that are as old as the Cascade I.ange itself, but l the geologists who have made an exam 1 nation of this region agree that the more | recent lavas were thrown from the cones | of peaks now In existence, particularly Mt. Pitt, Mazama, Thielson, Scott and | Diamond.
 Striking evidences are to be had prov | ing some of these volcanoes to belong to | the present, or rather the century just l past; even during the last 60 years move | ments of lava have occurred and ice
 strata yet unmelted, lie imprisoned under | basaltic overhows While it can only be | surmised, it is very probable that great 1 lakes of molten lava lie sleeping within | these great reservoirs, and may yet awake
 and cast their fire and fumes upon the | earth
 | The most striking evidence of recent . volcanic action found In southern Oregon | is at Crater Lake. During the glacier pe- ! Iod Crater Lake did not exist. What is now the majestic sheet of water was once | filled with towering mountain peak and
 the magnitude of the glacial phenomena | indicates that the peak was large one. | rivaling apparently, the highest peaks of 1 the range; this was Mt. Mazama. Old Mt. | Magma, the ancetn volcano, erupted reg ularly it's fire, ashes and lava upon the
 surrounding territory, but, like a spend | thrift, he wasted his substance and be- came hollow, a mere shell of noun
 tain. The fires of youth died away, and | afterward came the chill of old age, and, ! on the fatal day, the old hollow noun 1 tain, with a roar and a mighty crash that
 shook a hemisphere and upturned a con-
 tinent fell into itself.
 With this final end to his career, Mt. I I%@ 41~> l surrounding peaks of the Cascades and
 the other smoking chimneys in the "gar-
 den of volcanoes" Nothing remains of
 the once lofty volcano but the base, which
 forms the rim of Crater Lake.
 The geological history of southern Ore l gon is a most fascinating tale. Truly, the | strange people and the strange beasts 1 who roamed this region in prehistoric
 times looked upon land of even greater
 wonderment than we of the same region
 see today. But the first, in its primeval grandeur was the forerunner and, in l large sense, the molder of the present. 1 Biologists tell us that for an immense
 period before the garden of volcanoes" , was plante., an ancient ocean washed the
 shores of the great Rocky Mountain
 chain. This marginal sea bottom became
 the scene of intense aqueoigneous action | in it's deeply buried strata, producing a | line of weakness which, yielding to the
 horizontal thrust produced by the secular
 contraction of the interior of the earth,
 was crushed together and swollen up into
 the California cerras and the Oregon Cas- 1 cades, both of which are practically one i chain. The sea gradually receded west | ward from this new mountain chain, and
 the region thus left dry became the roam- ! ing ground for beasts of great size and 1 strange forms, as is attested by the relics l that have been uncovered It was also |
 of wonderful beauty, vastly different, no
 doubt, from the growth of the range
 today. The original range was not high, l and was later covered deeply by the last, | or rather by the volcanic range that fol- 1 lowed.
 l The power hydraulic giants and dredges | operating on the deep old channels are 1 today uncovering relics of the forest that covered the original Cascade Range. On
 the playground surface bed are found silic- | fled stumps with roots extending beneath. | Resting directly on the forest ground sur-
 face is a layer of stratified sandstone
 from two to three feet thick, filled with 1 beautiful and perfect impressions of leaves | of several kinds of forest trees. Above | this rests a course conglomerate and in | the stratified sandstone, and sometimes l lying in the dirt bed beneath 1t, fragments l of slicified driftwood are found. Above l this last congomerate rise the layers of lava, poured out and spilled by the gar den of volcanoes" these erupting noun
 tains belonging to the age that preceded the present.
 Professor Le Conte stated that the
 southern Oregon and California lava flow,
 which belongs to one vast region, Is the
 grandest and largest known to geology. The average thickness of this flow is not
 far from 2600 feet. To produce this many successive flows took place, and a very long period of time must have elapsed
 during which the volcanic actions were l going on. During the first period of the | isCascade eruptions, the Coast Range,
 which Is further to the west, and still un-
 der the border of the ocean, was being | slowly elevated. and became, in turn, scene of volcanic action, which was, how | ever, less severe These eruptions con tinued a long time, almost to our own day; in truth, could the first white dis coverers of the new world have looked | upon the Pacific coast first, they would, no doubt, have seen the black smoke still pouring from many of the west coast
 volcanoes-from Hood, Thielson. Scott and | Pitt. It was to these later eruptions that the upbuilding of the great snow-clad
 peaks of the present Oregon Is due.