Smoking Waters of Crater Lake a Great Mystery
The Hammond Times
San Diego, California
December 24, 1945
BY International News Service
The Navy and the U.S. Geological Survey are on the trail of one of the west's
greatest mysteries - the smoking waters of Crater Lake.
Sound recording equipment destined to be lowered into the lake, and snow
sleds to carry it, were due to arrive within a week to enable geologists to
penetrate the snowy crater and find the source of mysterious clouds of
smoke or dust reported intermittently since last fall over the ancient volcano
which blew up ages ago.
The Navy has offered to parachute the sound equipment and supplies to the
crater rim in the dead of winter, but dangers involved in the project may cause
Fred W. Cater of the U. S. Geological Survey and the officials of the National
Park Service to call the job off until summer.
Snowbanks heavier than usual, a lack of experienced men, and the distance of
the remote volcanic lake from the nearest settlement 25 miles away, may hold up
the installation which involves running a cable down one of the steep crater
walls.
The sound recorder, specially built by the Navy to register disturbances with
a frequency as low as 10 per second, operates with dry cell batteries.
E. P. Leavitt, superintendent of Crater Lake National Park, said it was his
opinion that slides of snow and rocks in the crater during the winter would
almost certainly carry the whole installation away.
