Crater Lake is situate in the northwestern portion of Klamath county,
Oregon, and is best reached by leaving the Southern Pacific Railroad at
Medford, which is 328 miles south of Portland, and about ninety miles
from the lake, which can be reached by a very good wagon road. The lake
is about six miles wide by seven miles long, but it is not its size
which is its beauty or its attraction. The surface of the water in the
lake is 6,251 feet above the level of the sea, and is surrounded by
cliffs or walls from 1,000 to over 2,000 feet in height, and which are
scantily covered with timber, and which offer at but one point a way of
reaching the water. The depth of the water is very great, and it is
very transparent, and of a deep blue color. Toward the southwestern
portion of the lake is Wizard Island, 845 feet high, circular in shape,
and slightly covered with timber. In the top of this island is a
depression, or crater--the Witches' Caldron--100 feet deep, and 475
feet in diameter, which was evidently the last smoking chimney of a
once mighty volcano, and which is now covered within, as without, with
volcanic rocks. North of this island, and on the west side of the lake,
is Llao Rock, reaching to a height of 2,000 feet above the water, and
so perpendicular that a stone may be dropped from its summit to the
waters at its base, nearly one-half mile below.

So far below the surrounding mountains is the surface of the waters in
this lake, that the mountain breezes but rarely ripple them; and looking
from the surrounding wall, the sky and cliffs are seen mirrored in the
glassy surface, and it is with difficulty the eye can distinguish the
line where the cliffs leave off and their reflected counterfeits begin.

OREGON NATIONAL PARK.