The ascent of Lassen's Butte is an easy walk, and the views from the
summit are extremely telling. Innumerable lakes and craters surround
the base; forests of the charming Williamson spruce fringe lake and
crater alike; the sunbeaten plains to east and west make a striking
show, and the wilderness of peaks and ridges stretch indefinitely away
on either hand. The lofty, icy Shasta, towering high above all, seems
but an hour's walk from you, though the distance in an air-line is
about sixty miles.
The "Big Meadows" lie near the foot of Lassen's Butte, a beautiful
spacious basin set in the heart of the richly forested mountains,
scarcely surpassed in the grandeur of its surroundings by Tahoe.
During the Glacial Period it was a mer de glace, then a lake, and now
a level meadow shining with bountiful springs and streams. In the
number and size of its big spring fountains it excels even Shasta.
One of the largest that I measured forms a lakelet nearly a hundred
yards in diameter, and, in the generous flood it sends forth offers
one of the most telling symbols of Nature's affluence to be found in
the mountains.
The great wilds of our country, once held to be boundless and
inexhaustible, are being rapidly invaded and overrun in every
direction, and everything destructible in them is being destroyed.
