VI. Steps Leading Toward Establishment of Crater Lake National Park

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C. Scientific Studies Commence

Mentions of occasional visits to Crater Lake by the neighboring populace over the next few years have been found, but it was not until almost ten years after Britt's pictures appeared that scientists began making serious plans to visit the lake. [7] In 1883 John Wesley Powell, director of the United States Geological Survey, sent Professor J.S. Diller and Everett Haden to the lake as the first Geological Survey party to visit the caldera and study its formation. Their investigation of lava flows and rock formations would form the basis for Diller's later theory that the mountain top collapsed rather than being blown away. Another topic of their study was the creation of Wizard Island, to which they journeyed on a log raft in order to view its cinder cone at close range. The brief report resulting from this trip, however, did not provoke much interest.