Page:The Californian volume 1,issue 2.djvu/64

 blance most complete. I know the beds of old. To me the dark lines are something more formidable than sea-weed. Every one of them recalls to memory adventures more or less disagreeable. Away in the east, distant three miles as the crow flies, is a long, dark, ragged line—Jack's famous stronghold.

It is assumed that the beds were once occupied by an active volcano. Through a freak of nature the volcano sunk into the earth during an eruption, and left upon the surface a sea of seething lava. The lava fused the rock with which it came in contact, and, as a rule, caused a complete metamorphosis. The primary rocks were stratified in new and curious forms. The formations exposed are of trachyte and basalt. Every ledge, so far as I observed, was mineralized with iron. Rock from the ledges is heavy and very tenacious. The rim of the beds is from fifty to one hundred yards in width, and consists of chunks of lava and lava dust. The java in the rim is of a light brown color, occasionally bordering on white, and weighs little more than pumice stone. The tough lava of which the beds are mainly composed is black, or has a bluish shade, according to locality. The loose pieces of lava on the outskirts of the beds indicate that the coating, as before suggested, was once in a liquid state. The fragments are porous and curved. Each had its place in the huge bubbles of the lava sea. There are immense numbers of funnel-like outlets, in which steam has been generated below and gas exploded, the openings being small at the bottom and large at the top, with crevices around. Where the steam has not exploded strongly enough to blow the rocks entirely clear, and has left these funnels, it has upheaved the rocks and allowed them to fall back loosely so as to form immense heaps.

The true character of the Lava Beds cannot be learned by inspection from afar. Nothing but close acquaintance will inform the visitor. Pass inside of the rim and you fail to find a level spot. Every rock stands on end and exposes angular points. When the war began the Indians were scattered along the western border. After several battles they suddenly vanished as by magic. It was supposed that they had fled to a distant locality. A reconnoissance developed them in what was aptly termed the back-bone of the beds, or Captain Jack's stronghold. This bone consists of a nob of giant ledges in the northeastern portion of the lava section. These ledges crop out boldly and have no special course. The best defined ledge generally trends north and south. The lesser ledges run nearly parallel at times, and again cut in at right angles. The mean level of the beds is below that of the lake, As you draw near the stronghold it becomes necessary to descend into irregular chasms, Before you have time to study the topography of the place, ledges loom up fifty and sixty feet high, directly in front, and all but compel a halt. The savages, pressed by the troops, retired from ledge to ledge, and each retreat carried them to higher ground and gave them additional advantages. The stronghold proper is about the summit of several of the boldest ledges. They radiate from a common centre and are difficult of access. Along the top of each ledge is a natural channel three or four feet in depth, wherein the cunning savage can skulk and shoot and still remain unseen. The channels are complicated and labyrinthian. Modocs had dwelt here for ages, so said tradition, and yet the followers of Jack would not trust to memory as they moved about. They failed to feel securely familiar with this pile of rocks two hundred yards square, and had the different channels marked by bits of wood! The rocks are not adapted to cave formations. The caves mentioned in war telegrams are spacious basins occurring in the solid rock. Those in the stronghold are one hundred or more feet in circumference, and have a depth of fifty feet. Overhanging rocks furnish a few of these caves with what might be termed incomplete roofing. Jack's band made a stand in the stronghold, and played sad havoc with assailing parties. One night the water in the stronghold gave out. The only convenient source of supply was the lake, distant one mile. Between the stronghold and the lake was a line of soldiers. Before morning the Modocs fled from this rocky fastness to the southern end of the beds, where Hasbrouck finally gave them so much trouble.

Five miles south of Rhett Lake, and in the southeastern portion of the lava deposit, are two bold buttes, united by a narrow tongue of black lava, which are of pure scoria. Each of these buttes has a crater at its crest. Close at hand are a number of lava buttes, with craters. All of these buttes combined could not have made the overflow constituting the beds, albeit the lips of the craters have been cut by streams of lava which cooled in the shadowy past. The marvelous power of nature, as exemplified in the configuration of the rocks about these buttes, and the lines of demarkation between fusion complete and arrested, make a lasting impression upon the most superficial beholder. There is an appalling sublimity in the sight which one can not shake off. The surface of the earth is in ruins here. Tree, plant, and grass are absent. The lava is a sombre black. There are bottomless fissures from one to two feet in width