Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/326

320 with high lights and deep shadows in the foreground, and with a soft, illusory glimmer in the deep distance. "We hardly wait for the full blaze of day on the picture, preferring to remember it in this more striking aspect.

Along the crests of the mountains are frequent lakes, some of which occupy old burnt-out craters; others may have been formed by the damming up of springs by lava overflows; others by a change in the elevation of certain districts, leaving depressions to be filled by the melting of snows, or by mountain springs and streams. These lakes occur generally where signs of recent volcanic action in the neighborhood are most numerous, as in the vicinity of Mount Jefferson, the Three Sisters, and Diamond Peak.

Pumice, cinders, scoria, and volcanic glass, with other evidences of eruption comparatively recent, abound all along the eastern base of the Cascade Range, and extend some distance through the central portion of Eastern Oregon. The traveler and scientific man must ever be amply repaid for the labor of exploring the country east of the mountains, by the great and varied wonders which meet him at almost every step of his journey.

It does not prejudice a country, either, that it is of volcanic formation; for, wherever the soil has had time to form, it is sure to be of that warm and fertile nature that produces every thing in abundance, and quickly. Probably the eastern slopes of the Cascades will sometime be celebrated for their grapes and peaches, as now the foot-hills of the Sierras are. In both instances, the soil and climate are identical.