Some Observers Claim To Have
Seen The Ocean From The Summit Of Shasta, But I Have Not Yet Been So
Fortunate.
The Cinder Cone near Lassen's Butte is remarkable as being the scene
of the most recent volcanic eruption in the range.
It is a
symmetrical truncated cone covered with gray cinders and ashes, with a
regular crater in which a few pines an inch or two in diameter are
growing. It stands between two small lakes which previous to the last
eruption, when the cone was built, formed one lake. From near the
base of the cone a flood of extremely rough black vesicular lava
extends across what was once a portion of the bottom of the lake into
the forest of yellow pine.
This lava flow seems to have been poured out during the same eruption
that gave birth to the cone, cutting the lake in two, flowing a little
way into the woods and overwhelming the trees in its way, the ends of
some of the charred trunks still being visible, projecting from
beneath the advanced snout of the flow where it came to rest; while
the floor of the forest for miles around is so thickly strewn with
loose cinders that walking is very fatiguing. The Pitt River Indians
tell of a fearful time of darkness, probably due to this eruption,
when the sky was filled with falling cinders which, as they thought,
threatened every living creature with destruction, and say that when
at length the sun appeared through the gloom it was red like blood.
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