Drift Crater Lake. "There are many lakes in America, many craters, also, of volcanoes, both active and inactive, but only one Crater Lake, and Oregon is the proud possessor of this natural phenomenon," is the happy manner in which Miss Vale, of St. Helen's Hall, prefaces her lecture upon that most wonderful of Nature's mysteries. For in spite of all that has beeu seen and said and studied, Crater Lake is a mystery still. Miss Vale, who made the arduous journey to Crater Lake last August, and who has made an enthusiastic but scientific study of her subject, takes the ground that the conical island known as Wizard's Island is not, as some geoligists suppose, the summit of the vanished Mt. Mazama, self-submerged, but a volcanic formation of later origin. The lecture which was delivered to a select and appreciative audience at the St. Helen's Hall in April, abounds in beautiful descrip. tions, pictures, painted in the rare and wonderful colors of the woods and rocks and mountain solitudes. 'Never," she says, "can I forget the last sight I had of the Lake. After a long day spent there, walking about and admiring the ever-new views that every turn of the path revealed, the rest of the party returned to the camp, leaving me alone to watch the sunset. How can I describe it? As the sun went down and his rays struck the water, it reflected back the glory of the sky. Every moment the picture became more and more brilliant. The soft white clouds, low on the horizon, rolled into golden heaps, floating in a sea of purples and opaline tints of endless variety. They lingered for a brief seas on, faded away, and the water looked like a flood of molten gold. As the sun sinks below the rim of the lake the colors fade, the shadows gather quickly, and nothing is left but a vivid recollection-a picture photographed in the memory forever." Miss Vale has a large collection of photographs of the lake, and the scenery by the way, with which she illustrates her lecture She makes a comparison between Mt. Shasta and the lost mountain. "Mt. Shasta and the ruin of Crater Lake are of equal diameter at an altitude of 8.000 feet; that is, if the peak of Shasta could be shaved down or cut off at the height of 8,000 feet, the flat top would be just the same area as Crater Lake. Being composed of essentially the same lavas and formed in the same way, it is probable that the two mountains would rise to equal elevations. "The problem at once arises as to the disappearance of this vast mountain! Nearly 93 six miles in diameter and possibly five thousand feet or more in height above the present edge of the lake. How has it been removed and the tremendious basin now occupied by Crater Lake produced? Wonderful as the lake, encircled by its cliffs may be, it serves to conceal in part the great wonder-that is-the enormous pit or caldron which is half-filled by the lake." This vast basin, or bowl, Miss Vale compares to Lake Superior in immensity and depth, but Lake Superior is but one thousand feet deep. Crater Lake, measuring from the rim of the Crater, as an average of four thousand feet. * "Pheme." W.P.FULLER & CO'S Rubber-Cement Floor Paint WEARS LIKE IRON DRIES HARD OVER NIGHT Did you ever stand on an eminence in the midst of the rolling prairies of Southwest Kansas when they are covered with the verdure of the early spring? No? Then you have missed a scene than which there are few more beautiful this side of the pearly gates. But you have doubtless stood on the seashore and watched the billows stretch away endlessly into the horizon, and if you have, I think I can picture to you the beautiful scene that memory holds up to me. Suppose that away back in the chaotic time when "the morning stars sang together" that these billows had been running high and broad and that He who silenced the waves of Gallilee had said to them "Peace, be still" and that instantly all motion had ceased and instead of foaming water there was dry land covered with varied verdure-picture all this if you can, and you have the prairies as they are. Flowers? Yes, it is one of God's flower gardens in the early spring before the hot winds come. You will find the bright orange of the wild geranium beside the dark purple of the wild verbena; the delicate sensitive rose trailing its tender shoots among the brilliant clusters of the wild morning glory; blue hyacinths and wild onions nodding their blooms toward each other; the buffalo bean and the Indian pea shaking their long spikes of brightness on the prairie windsall these on the uplands where the soil is rich and dark. Where the red and yellow sands sparkle in long stretches, there you will find cacti in abundance. Then in the buffalo wallows are tangles of marsh marigolds and gay-colored xenias, while down dandelions and daisies nestle in the shade in the deep canyons of the plumy grass that grows tall and rank -fit abode for prairie chicken and rabbit and terrapin and all the other shy denizens of the prairie. But if you will look on the same scene a few months later in the season, you will find a weird and wonderful change. Instead of the bright green that was flecked with the crimsons and purples and blues of the early Spring, you will see only the somber and dismal brown-brown-brown; all the grass and flowers and waving grain literally scorched and burned and withered. Here and there the sand showing through bright yellow and red and sending up little quivering waves of heat everywhere towards the sky from whose cloudless expanse the sun shines down with the heat of a furnace; nothing to relieve the monotony of the scene that stretches out before the weary eye-only long, brown waves of land that meet the arching sky. No sounds through the noonday but the unceasing swish and rustle of the withered foliage as the winds surge over it. In the midst of such a scene as this stood a little pine hut with straw-thatched roof. It held but three inmates, a young girl of about 20 years of age whom everybody called "Pheme," her older married sister and little babe. The older sister, Maggie, had been for some months prostrated with typhoid fever and was now so weak that she could not raise her head, or lift her hand. The babe was sleeping in its crib and Pheme was ironing. Outside the wind was blowing a gale. Far off to the northwest about 100 miles away, a passenger train was sweeping along. The travelers looked out on the dreary scene and wondered how any one could want to live in such a place; the fireman threw the ashes from his locomotive into the grass and the train went swirling on. But among the ashes there was one live coal. ("Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!") Once out in the wind, it began to glow and sparkle. Soon the one beside it was glowing and sparkling, too. Then, by and by between them, they sent up a tiny tongue of flame to the nearest shoot of grass. The little flame climbed to the top of the grass blade and then leaped to the next, and the next, and the next, and other little columns of red leaped up through the grass and danced high up in the air until by and by, there was sweeping along that terror of the inhabitants of the prairie-a fire! Pheme looked out of her low window and seeing a cloud of smoke away off to the northwest, gave a little cry of horror. She knew too well what this meant. The wind. was just in the direction to bring the fire down upon her. All the other members of the household had gone to a town some 14 miles away and would not be home until nightfall. There was no time for delay for these prairie fires travel with terrible rapidity. Without waking her sister or the baby, she hastened out to the barn and hitched the two horses there to the plow, to plow an additional fire guard. Every farm in Southwest Kansas has its fire guard which consists of a few furrows plowed the whole way around the farm; then there is a space of unplowed ground several the two rows of plowed ground is kept burned off closely so that fire cannot cross it because there is nothing there for fire to burn. 301 Alder Street, Portland, Oregon WANTED A case of bad health that RI PA N'S will not benefit. RI PAN S, 10 for 5 cents, or 12 packets for 48 cents, may be had of all druggists who are willing to sell a low-priced medicine at a modern profit. They banish pain and prolong life. One gives relief. Accept no substitute. Send 5 cents to Ripans Chemical Co., No. 10 Spruce St., New York, for 10 samples and 1000 testimonials. THEY REGULATE THE BOWELS. THEY CURE SICK HEADACHE. A SINGLE ONE GIVES RELIEF. ON'T SET HENS OLD WAY. THE NAT'L HEN INCUBATOR beats old plan 3 to 1. Little in price but big money maker. Agts. wanted. Send for cat. telling how to get one free. Natural Hen Incubator Co., B 70 Columbus, Neb. Rev. H. Heuser made a 100 Egg Hatcher. cost $1.00 A Free Trip to Paris! Reliable persons of a mechanical or inventive mind desiring a trip to the Paris Exposition, with good salary and expenses paid, should write The PATENT RECORD, Baltimore, Md. If Pheme knew that with such a high wind as today, their narrow fire guard would be of little use for the burning tumble weeds will travel a long distance. Her intention now was to plow a few more furrows just outside the garden by the house and burn a wider space before the fire came. She had not gone a rod until she saw that her work was useless. The fire would be upon her before she could get the back fire going. The horses had smelled the smoke and were quivering with excitement. She loosed them from the plow and they broke away from her and galloped off across the prairie at the highest speed. She glanced after them with dismay. One more chance of life gone, she thought. It had occurred to her as she was trying to plow that she might possibly take her sister and the babe, one at a time on one of the horses, to some place of safety, but now she could not do that. She stood for a moment dazed and undecided, then another plan suggested itself. One thinks very quickly in a time like this: hours seem ages: moments seem days. Up the canyon a few rods there was an old dug-out built well up on the side of the canyon where there was no tall grass and so no chance for the fire to come. she could just reach this in time! She ran into the house and found her sister awake. Pheme had not much breath to spend in words so she said briefly and hastily "There's a big fire coming and I am going to take you and the baby to the old dug-out down the canyon." As she spoke, she took Maggie up in her arms and started. "Oh! take the baby first-take the baby first," wailed the sick sister, but Pheme paid no attention. When they got outside of the door and Maggie caught sight of the red flames so near, she fainted away at once. Pheme did not have time to get water to restore her. Trembling with fatigue she hastened on through the tall grass to the old dug-out. She reached it, laid her sister down, and hurried back for the baby. The flames were now quite close to the house. The baby was wide awake and smiled up at her as she took him in her arms. When he caught sight of the flames, he crowed with delight, thinking no doubt that this was some new and pretty plaything that had been arranged specially for him. Pheme was by this time so weak with the excitement and over-exertion that she could hardly drag herself along. She could hear the flames close behind her but dared not look around. A little faster now and all will be well! Through the high grass safe? Good! You can easily reach the dug-out now before the fire comes. What! tripping and falling? Oh! Poor Pheme. Hear the flames right behind you! Up and on! Quick! Quick! But Pheme could not move. Just on the edge of the tallest grass she lay powerless. She tried to lift her arms but could not. She could not even speak. Maggie had by this time revived and looking out through the open door from where she lay, saw Pheme falling. "Oh! Pheme! Pheme! she called in agony, but Pheme could not reply. She tried again to nove her arms. She could not. She tried again to speak, but not a sound came. Maggie screamed and moaned. She could see the flames now almost upon Pheme and the baby but she was powerless to help them. Her torture was horrible. Suddenly Pheme felt her strength come back a little. She could not get up but she could move her arms. She took the baby up and reaching as far as she could, pushed him from her with all her strength out of the way of the fire. Maggie looking out from the door, saw all this. "Oh! Pheme, Pheme!" she cried. "Can't you move just a little? Then you will be out of the tall grass." But Pheme had used all her strength to save the baby. "It's too late, Maggie," she said, "too late." The flames were upon her now but the baby was saved! In one moment of time her whole life flashed before her. Scenes from her childhood came back to her; she saw herself a child again, wandering about her old Eastern home now chasing butterflies under the pink bloom of apple blossomsnow gathering autumn berries on the crimson and gold-crowned hills. Then later life scenes came up. She thought of a lover waiting alone for the bride that would come to him only in death; of the modest little prairie home that she would never share. All these thoughts passed through her mind with lightning rapidity while the flames were doing their horrible work. too intense for thought. struggle for breath in black smoke and then all was over! The agony now was There was a terrible the fierce heat and On a lonely spot on the prairies of Southwest Kansas, there is a grave marked with a plain white slab. There in the evenings, you will often find a boy of about ten years of age tenderly watering the white rose he is trying to get to grow on the lonely grave and if you should ask him whose grave this is for which he is taking such care, he will reply: "That is the grave of my Aunt Pheme who was burned to death while she was trying to save my life and my mama's." * * Read, rest, and constantly recuperate. An interesting book that can be caught up in a moment of physical fatigue is absolute necessity. Don't impose upon your stomach, for that organ is possessed of great retaliatory power. Always leave till tomorrow or next week the duties you are too ill to perform today. Do not fret over things than can or cannot be helped. Women who do their own work should always restore the equilibrium of the internal organs by assuming a horizontal position as often as possible. This position equalizes the rate of the circulation of the blood. No woman can be healthy in soul and body who does not allow herself time to read. No woman can preserve her good looks who does not give herself frequent resting spells in the working hours. To this end, a lounge conveniently placed is of the greatest necessity. |