Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/276

 the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, Yellowstone Park, Niagara Falls, Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, and Yosemite. Stephen T. Mather, Director U. S. National Park Service, CRATER LAKE tells us that "although there are thousands of craters in this country, some of which contain small lakes, there is but one great caldera in the world and that contains Crater Lake." Crater Lake is, therefore, one of the most remarkable bodies of water in the world. Originally it was not a lake, but Mount Mazama, about 15,000 feet high—one of the great Courtesy of National Park Service. MOUNT MAZAMA RESTORED

mountains of the Continent. Yet no human eye ever saw Mount Mazama; for before the advent of man in what is now called Oregon, all that portion of the mountain above 8,000 feet elevation disappeared leaving a vast smoking caldron, which gradually filled with water to the depth of 2,000 feet; beautiful, sweet, and limpid. Crater Lake is five and one-half miles in diameter—the surface being 6, 1 77 feet