The following thirty-two introductory essays, arranged by
subject, are chapter introductions to "Mount Shasta: An
Annotated Bibliography." Taken together, the essays cover a wide
variety of topics concerning the history of Mount Shasta and
give an overview of the entire written history of the mountain.
These essays distil and summarize much of the information which
is contained in the aproximately 1500 entries of the
bibliography itself. The bibliography was written as a guide to
finding selected historical materials (books, articles,
manuscripts, etc.) held by the College of the Siskiyous' Mount
Shasta Collection. The overriding theme of the essays is that
there are historical 'problems' yet to be fully solved. These
problems range from simple questions such as when might the
mountain next erupt, to more complex questions such as why do
people believe in the existence of a subterranean city within
the mountain. There really are never complete answers to such
questions, and the best one can do is to present what is known
so far, and draw conclusions.
1. Comprehensive Histories of Mt. Shasta
The Nineteenth Century at Mount Shasta was full of science,
art, literature, and exploration, but it was not until the
Twentieth Century that anyone took the time to compile and
interpret what had transpired in the previous hundred years.
Thus the first general account of Mount Shasta history, Ansel
Franklin Hall's "Mount Shasta" Sierra Club Bulletin report, did
not appear until 1926. A few years later, in 1929, Charles
Lockwood Stewart presented as a U.C. Berkeley master's thesis a
major comprehensive history of the mountain. Stewart's thesis,
"The Discovery and Exploration of Mount Shasta" is still used by
scholars today because of it's wealth of original research.
Nearly three decades passed by until 1957, when the next
significant general Mount Shasta history, Arthur Francis
Eichorn's "The Mount Shasta Story," would be published. In his
book, Eichorn began to answer the kind of historical questions
about mountaineering, the legends, the early exploration, the
naming of Mount Shasta, and so on, that the old and new
residents of the area were eager to read about. The new ski area
of the late 1950's had enlivened the region by bringing new
people, and had brought about the need for updated information.
Throughout the decades, however, the eminent artist, scholar,
and mountaineer Edward Stuhl had been collecting historical
material and was kept an extensive ongoing bibliography about
the mountain's past. Stuhl first came to Mount Shasta in 1917,
was a friend and collaborator of Charles Stewart in 1929, and
had been planning a general history of the mountain all along.
In 1981 he published his famous "Wildflowers of Mount Shasta,"
which in fact (albeit overshadowed by his wonderful art)
contains much of the history he wished to see in print. The
complicated presentation and incompleteness of Stuhl's book were
evident, and so a need still existed for an accessible and
readable history of the mountain. It was Stuhl's good friend and
fellow mountaineer Michael Zanger who finally, in 1992, brought
out an up-to-date, readable, illustrated history of Mount
Shasta. Note that each work selected for this section of the
bibliography is wholly devoted to the comprehensive history of
Mt. Shasta. This history has many facets, and, given the varying
interests of the authors, no two of the works in this section
cover exactly the same topics. Unique material will be found in
each book or report. Each work is in and of itself a worthy
overview of, and introduction to, Mt. Shasta studies. Other
historical works which are specific about particular subject
matter, for example, Willis Linn Jepson's 1942 "Early Botanical
Ascents of Mt. Shasta" (in Section 31. Science: Botany), will be
found in the appropriate topical sections of the Mount Shasta
Collection annotated bibliography.
2. Native Americans of the Mt. Shasta Region
This section of the Mount Shasta Collection bibliography
contains a diverse selection of scholarly studies on the Shasta,
Wintu, Achomawi, and other tribes historically located about the
base of Mt. Shasta. Several entries were included because of
their relevance to determining the tribal origins of the name
"Shasta." A few studies of ethnography, archaeology, and
linguistics were included for their importance in helping to
identify the historic geographical distribution of the Shasta
and other local tribes. A few entries were added because of
their importance in illustrating the wide range of scholarly
approaches to Mt. Shasta's Native American history. Some native
legends of Mt. Shasta, including native names for the mountain,
can be found in this section of the bibliography, but are more
fully treated in Section 15. Legends: Native American. An
important group of materials concerning the philological naming
of the Shasta language is found in Section 9. Early Exploration:
American Government Expeditions, 1841-1860, in particular those
entries pertaining to the Native American vocabulary collected
by the Wilkes-Emmons overland expedition at the base of Mt.
Shasta in 1841. For materials on the possible relationship
between the name "Shasta" and the southern Oregon "Chastacosta"
tribe, see Section 3. Chastacosta Tribe.
3. Chastacosta Tribe
In 1907 Roland Burrage Dixon discussed the derivation of
the name "Shasta" and added the following comment: "The matter
is further complicated by the difficulty of clearing up the
precise relationship of the so-called 'Chasta' of Oregon, and of
explaining the recurrence of the same term in the name of the
Athabascan tribe of the Chasta-Costa of the Oregon coast" (see
Dixon 1907). The entries in this section were selected for their
relevance to Dixon's comment. It appears from the entries that
the Athabascan-speaking Chasta and Chastacosta may have been one
and the same tribe, different from the Hokan-speaking Chasta and
Shasta. It is also possible that the Chastacosta extended
geographically at some point in time as far east as the present
town of Medford in the Rogue River Valley. One interesting
problem raised by the following entries has to do with the
identity of the tribe written of by Peter Skene Ogden in 1826 as
the "Sastise," and who were the namesake of the mountain later
called Mt. Shasty and presently called Mt. McLoughlin (see
LaLande 1987). It is possible that the name "Shasta" was
originally an Athabascan name.
4. Early Exploration: Lapérouse Expedition, 1786
Laperouse, contrary to legend, did not see Mount Shasta in
eruption in 1786. The legend began with R. H. Finch, an
associate vulcanologist of the Lassen Volcano Observatory. He
was the first geologist to publish a proposal that Mt. Shasta or
Mount Lassen erupted in 1786. Finch's 1930 article postulated
that an erupting Mt. Shasta or Mt. Lassen was seen by French
explorer Jean-François Galaup de Lapérouse, on September 7,
1786, from a ship sailing along California's Mendocino coast.
The Lapérouse expedition was one of the greatest scientific
charting expeditions of the 18th Century, comparable in scope
and purpose with the voyages of Cook, and of Vancouver.
Lapérouse and his two ships were shipwrecked in 1788, never
having returned to Europe. Fortunately Lapérouse intermittently,
from various ports of call, sent reports back to France. A large
portion of his journals and maps he sent in 1787 via a messenger
who traveled for two years across Siberia to reach Paris with
the precious documents. Lapérouse's manuscript journals mention
the vivid 1786 eruption, and his original manuscript map (kept
in Paris at the French National Archives) depicts the volcano's
smoke in dramatic full purple color. But the manuscript map (and
the published versions as well) clearly shows the location of
the volcano directly on the sea coast, not inland at all. Books
and an atlases based on the manuscripts were published in 1797.
The 1786 eruption of Mt. Shasta has become, in textbooks and in
popular accounts, almost an accepted geological fact. But the
position of the volcano as depicted on the manuscript map and published maps of
Lapérouse make it very doubtful that what he saw took place as far inland as Mt. Shasta or Mt.
Lassen. Consider, too, that in 1816, thirty years later at the same place, on Cape Mendocino, the
French fur trader Camille de Roquefeuil, saw the same sight as Laperouse, but recognized it as
fires set by the native peoples. De Roquefeuil says: "It was, doubtless, this circumstance, which
was unknown to our illustrious La Peyrouse, and that was the cause of his error, when seeing a
great fire on Cape Mendocino, about the same time of year, he thought it was a volcano."
5. Early Exploration: Spanish Expeditions, 1808-21
These entries pertain to three Spanish expeditions into the
upper areas of the Sacramento River Valley. The expeditions were
led by Gabriel Moraga in 1808 and Luis Antonio Argüello in 1817
and 1821. Moraga's diary from 1808 records his act of assigning
the name "Jesús María" to the river now known as the Sacramento
River. The 1817 diary of Argüello expedition member Fray Narciso
Duran contains what is often considered to be the first recorded
sighting of Mt. Shasta. Duran wrote about a "high snow-covered
hill," and a river near it, both named "Jesús María." The 1821
expedition diaries of Argüello himself and of Padre Blas Ordaz
both mention "Los Quates" or "the Twins," possibly in reference
to Mt. Lassen, Mt. Shasta and/or other mountains. Over the years
historians have presented many theories and conflicting opinions
over the routes of these three expeditions. The Argüello 1821
diary, translated and published for the first time in 1992, adds
details that the "Twins" were of equal form and height and
nearly joined, and that they had been visited by the Scotsman
John Anthony Gilroy some time before 1821. The true identities
of the Jesús María "high snow covered hill," and of "los Quates"
are, however, still unknown.
6. Early Exploration: Russian Explorers, 1812-41
That "Shasta" is a Russian name is one of the most
interesting of Mt. Shasta legends. Unfortunately there are not
many documents supporting this idea, and it is difficult to find
materials on this subject. The classic account of the Russian
derivation of the name "Shasta" was by historian Harry Wells. He
explained in his 1881 History of Siskiyou County that the
Russians who settled at Bodega could see Mt. Shasta from the
highest mountains of the Coast Range, and called it "Tchastal,"
or the white and pure mountain. He explained that the early
Americans adopted the name, pronouncing it "Chasta." Wells's
account, and other accounts related to the American trappers'
pronunciation and spelling of "Chasta," will be found in Section
14. The Name Shasta. The 1821 diary of Argüello as discussed in
Section 5. Early Exploration: Spanish Expedition 1808-1821 lends
support that the Russians had found their way into the
Sacramento Valley. See also Michael Zanger's book Mt. Shasta:
History, Legend and Lore for a discussion of the 1841 ascent of
Mt. St. Helena by a Russian from Bodega Bay. In this section are
a few entries which may provide leads to future research into
this important aspect of Mt. Shasta history. It stands to reason
that the Russians, who settled in Bodega Bay in 1812, would have
ventured inland more than once or twice; the problem is finding
evidence to that effect. There is also a large body of evidence
which suggests that the name "Shasta" is not derived from a
Russian word at all, but is derived from Native American tribal
name.
7. Early Exploration: British Hudson's Bay Company, 1826-42
The explorers Peter Skene Ogden, Alexander Roderick McLeod,
Francis Ermatinger, Michel Laframboise, and John Work, as well
as the administrators Alexander Caulfield Anderson, John
Douglas, John McLoughlin, and George Simpson, are all famous
Hudson's Bay Company personalities who in their own writings
have mentioned at one time or another the names "Shasta" or
"Siskiyou." Their writings are relevant to the history of Mt.
Shasta, the Siskiyou mountains, the Pit River, Mt. McLoughlin,
Klamath Lake, and other places of the Shasta region. The
location of the "Pass of the Siskiyou," as noted by Gibbs in
1863, is of importance to determining the location of Alexander
R. McLeod's "Chaste Mount." A number of entries in this section
were selected for their relevance to the origins of the name
"Siskiyou." Several of the entries in this section concern the
"Mount Sistise" or "Mount Sastise," and the "Sasty" River, both
named by Peter Skene Ogden during his 1826-1827 exploration of
the mountains called today the Siskiyous. Ogden's spellings are
probably the very first recorded of the name which eventually
became known as "Shasta."
8. Early Exploration: American Trade & Migration, 1828-49
Jedediah Strong Smith, Ewing Young, Hall J. Kelley, Philip
Leget Edwards, James Clyman, Lansford Hastings, Jesse Applegate,
Jesse Quinn Thornton, and many other American explorers and
settlers made their way through the Mt. Shasta Region between
1828 and 1849. Through their influence the names of "Snowy
Bute," "Mt. Simpson," "Mt. Jackson," among others, became some
of the earliest Euro-American names for present-day Mt. Shasta.
The entries in this section document the migration of civilian
Americans through the Mt. Shasta region of Cailfornia. See also
Section 9. Early Exploration: American Government Expeditions,
1841-1860 for information on U. S. Government expeditions into
the Mt. Shasta region.
9. Early Exploration: American Government Expeditions, 1841-1860
This section pertains to the Wilkes Expedition of 1838-42,
the Frémont Expeditions of 1843-44 and 1845-46, and the Pacific
Railroad Surveys of the 1850s. The Wilkes Expedition of 1838-
1842, officially known as the United States Exploring
Expedition, sailed around the world. At the Columbia River in
1841 commander Charles Wilkes ordered lieutenant George Foster
Emmons to lead an overland expedition from Fort Vancouver
southward to California. Though frequently written of in
historical annals as the 1841 "Wilkes overland expedition," it
should be kept in mind that Wilkes himself was not a member of
the overland party. In this bibliography the name "Wilkes-Emmons
overland expedition" has been adopted as a name for the overland
expedition. At least six of the men on this 1841 Wilkes-Emmons
overland expedition kept detailed day-to-day journals. These six
journals still exist. Taken together, the journals have recorded
in exceptional detail impressions and scientific observations of
Mt. Shasta as it was in 1841.
It is noteworthy that this Wilkes-Emmons overland
expedition may have been responsible for the transposition of
the name "Mt. Shasty" from its prior use as a name for present
Mt. McLoughlin to its present use as a name for today's Mt.
Shasta. Also important historically is that the Indian
vocabulary collected by the expedition at the base of Mt. Shasta
in 1841 became the type vocabulary for all of philologist
Horatio Hale's geographically extensive southern Oregon
"Shastean" language family (see Hale Philology1848 in Section
14. The Name 'Shasta'). This vocabulary led to the name Shasta
later being applied to all tribes speaking this language,
although name "Shastean" might have originally been more
appropriate for Indian languages in the Rogue and Umpqua areas
of southern Oregon, had the overland expedition collected a
vocabulary there. Beyond its importance in establishing names,
however, the 1841 Wilkes-Emmons overland expedition was
important in being the first group of American scientists and
artists to visit Mt. Shasta. The four-year Wilkes Expedition
itself was comprised of 600 sailors in several ships, who
escorted nine hand-picked civilian scientists and artists around
the world. The Smithsonian Institution was founded upon the
scientific collections from those nine gentlemen. Five of those
nine were on the Wilkes-Emmons overland expedition to Mt. Shasta
in 1841.
In 1843-44 and again in 1845-46 John Charles Frémont led
expeditions into the Mt. Shasta region. His published narratives
about these expeditions were best sellers in their time, and Mt.
Shasta is mentioned on occasion. Frémont's topographer, Charles
Preuss, kept notebooks in 1843-44, which have not been published
in full, but which show present Mt. McLoughlin named as "Sasty,"
and present Mt. Shasta named as "Pit." In 1848 a map published
by Frémont and Preuss reversed these names (using the variant
spellings "Tsashtl" and "Pitt"), following the new convention as
established by the maps resulting from the Wilkes Expedition.
Note that the maps of Wilkes in 1844 and Frémont in 1848 both
retained the name 'Shaste' for the Rogue River.
The publications resulting from the Pacific Railroad
Surveys of the 1850s have been called America's "first
environmental impact statements." These volumes, 12 in all,
often illustrated with color lithographs and detailed
illustrations of the botany, geology, and anthropology of the
routes, and which cost the government more than the surveys
themselves, set a publishing standard unmatched by later
government publications. Two of the Railroad Surveys passed near
Mt. Shasta, and the artwork and descriptions of the Shasta
region as found in the published reports are a major
contribution to the legacy of Mt. Shasta arts and sciences.
10. Early Exploration: Historical Interpretations & Reviews
The entries in this section are mostly general works which
place Mt. Shasta in an historical context. Mt. Shasta was the
main sentinel on the California-Oregon trail during the 1830s,
1840s, and 1850s. It stood squarely in the middle of a remote
territory fiercely defended by Native Americans. It was a
landmark that commanded attention. In a physical sense it drew
attention because of height, size, and beauty. In a symbolic
sense it represented a route of uncertain and difficult passage.
As early as 1840 British and American historians such as John
Dunn and Robert Greenhow were busy writing books and articles
which included mention of the mountain. These early histories
were important tools used to support claims of ownership of the
Oregon Territory. By the late 19th Century historians such as
Hubert Howe Bancroft and Harvey Scott wrote books and articles
in order to piece together a clearer view of the disparate facts
of the multinational settlement of the West. In the early 20th
Century historians such as Reuben Gold Thwaites began to publish
and annotate the journals and writings of important and
interesting early figures from the Fur Trade and California
settlement era. By the middle to late 20th Century, historians
such as Edwin Gudde and Carl Wheat on occasion mentioned Mt.
Shasta in their extensive writings about California place names
and cartography.
11. Mountaineering: 19th Century
Climbing Mt. Shasta is a memorable and challenging
experience. During the mid-19th Century the climbing excitement
was magnified by the fact it took a considerable amount of
effort just to reach the mountain. Personal accounts by
scientists and explorers who climbed Shasta are found in the
following books, articles, diaries, and letters, which taken
together, constitute a remarkable legacy of expression. Some of
the prose is simple and mundane, while some is inspired and
sophisticated. Many famous people wrote about Mt. Shasta: Josiah
Dwight Whitney, John Muir, Clarence King, William Henry Brewer,
and their accounts are justifiably cherished. But there are just
as many lesser known persons who wrote their own stories of the
ascent of Mt. Shasta, and they often wrote in as equally an
inspired and expressive manner as their better known
contemporaries. Several of the entries in this section are not
generally available and deserve to be better known. J. D.
Whitney's own account of his 1862 climb, published in 1865 in
Volume 1 of the Geological Survey of California, is a good
example of a little-known work of great style.
12. Mountaineering: 20th Century
The 20th Century brought changes to the Mt. Shasta climbing
experience: mountain marathons, mountaineering clubs, new roads,
and a new mountain hut. The entries in this section have no
easily discernible common thread, except of course, for the hint
of challenge and adventure inherent in climbing a peak more than
4,000 meters high. Among the more unusual entries are G. H.
Fitch's account of a 1903 climb accompanied by a distinguished
East Indian swami-mountaineer, F. H. McNeil's 1915 account of
the contents of the crammed-full record box on Shasta's summit,
Edward Stuhl's journal of his first attempt climbing for the
summit in 1917, and Paul McHugh's story of Reverend Douglas
Smith's 1971 war protest from the summit of Mt. Shasta. The 20th
Century accounts of climbing Mt. Shasta record a wide variety of
climbers and climbing motivations.
13. History after 1849
This section contains entries about the settlement of the
Mt. Shasta region, and includes materials about pioneers,
railroads, lumbering, newspapers, and other post Gold Rush
activities. Most of the works cover the late 19th Century and
early 20th Century. Mae Helen Bacon Boggs's My Playhouse was a
Concord Coach... is the most complete available compilation of
newspaper articles about a variety of topics in local history.
Other historical works are comprehensive about more specific
topics, for example, railroad construction and operation around
Mt. Shasta are discussed in such books as John Signor's 1982
Rails In the Shadow of Shasta...(and his updated version in the
year 2000 entitled :"Southern Pacific's Shasta Division: Over a Century of
Railroading in the Shadow of Mt. Shasta") and Robert Hanft's Pine Across the
Mountain. See also Section 1. Comprehensive Histories of Mt.
Shasta for other works describing the varied activities of the
settlement era.
14. The Name 'Shasta'
This section contains entries for some of the more
important scholarly contributions pertaining to the origins of
the name "Shasta." This section also contains a selection of
primary documents, from the 1830s and 1840s, which serve to
illustrate the wide variety of past uses of "Shasta" as a name
for various mountains, rivers, and peoples. Taken as a whole,
the entries in this section have been grouped together to draw
attention to the fact that there is a bewildering number of
possible sources to the name "Shasta."
Evidence points to the conclusion that Peter Skene Ogden
was in 1826 and 1827 the first Euro-American to use the Native
American tribe name "Shasta" as a name for an Indian tribe, a
mountain, and a river. Ogden did not spell the name as it is
spelled today, but spelled it in several variations as
"Sastise," "Castice," "Sistise," "Sarti," and "Sasty." Ogden's
1826-27 journal, which unfortunately exists only as a clerk's
transcribed copy with transcription errors, contains
descriptions which indicate that the mountain he named was
present Mt. McLoughlin in southern Oregon and not present Mt.
Shasta. See Jeff LaLande's 1987 First Over the Siskiyous for a
detailed commentary on Ogden's 1826-1827 journal. Note that
Ogden's manuscript maps from 1826-27 were catalogued in the
Hudson's Bay Archives, but have never been located by scholars.
Ogden's manuscript maps may someday clarify the location of his
1827 Mt. "Sastise" and "Sasty" River.
Several pieces of evidence outlined in this section of the
bibliography point to the conclusion that present Mt. Shasta was
named through a transposition of the name "Shasta" from Mt.
McLoughlin to present Mt. Shasta. In all probability the
official transposition was effected through the published
reports and maps resulting from the 1838-1842 Wilkes Expedition.
The 1841 Wilkes-Emmons overland expedition, an important side
venture of the Wilkes Expedition, seems to have been directly
responsible for the mistaken transposition of the name. The
first printed maps to transpose the name appeared in 1844. A few
of the entries in this section, see for example the entry for
the Mitchell map of 1846, show how the transposition of the name
became widely and permanently established. Although Peter Skene
Ogden's journal from 1826-1827 and the Wilkes-Emmons overland
expedition journals of 1841 are important documents in the
history of the naming of Mt. Shasta, it must be kept in mind
that there are dozens of other important early books, articles
and manuscripts which use "Shasta" in some spelling or another
and which indirectly suggest alternative origins of the name.
The "Shatasla" tribe mentioned by Alexander Henry in 1814, the
"Tchastal" Russian name described by Harry Wells in 1881, the
"Chastacosta" tribal name described by Swanton, and so on, are
all important names which fit into the overall picture of the
history of the Mt. Shasta region. The entries in this section
demonstrate the complexity of the story behind the name
"Shasta."
One of the more surprising findings is that the modern
spelling of the name "Shasta," beginning with an "S–" and ending
with an "–a," does not appear in any publication or manuscript
until the year 1850, when the California State Legislature
adopted the spelling of "Shasta" for the County of Shasta. See
the entry under Madison Walthall, 1850, for the first such
spelling. It appears that the spelling of "Shasta" was adopted
as a spelling for present Mt. Shasta at the same time that the
spelling was adopted for the County. Between 1844 and 1850 the
spellings of "Shasty," "Shasté," and "Sasty" were by far the
most prevalent spellings for present Mt. Shasta, although many
other spellings were also used, such as "Tsashtl," "Shastl,"
etc.
As indicated above, this section of the bibliography
contains entries representative of the vast array of published
and unpublished documents which directly or indirectly pertain
to the history of the name "Shasta." Consult Sections 1 through
14 of this bibliography for many other works which pertain to
the origins of the name "Shasta."
15. Legends: Native American
This section contains entries referring the reader to books
and articles containing Native American stories and legends of
Mt. Shasta. Note that the stories and legends have in general
not been transcribed or quoted in this bibliography due to
limitations of space. Several well-known Californian and
American ethnologists, including Jeremiah Curtin, Roland B.
Dixon, John Wesley Powell, and C. Hart Merriam, have collected
the myths of the Wintu, Shasta, Achumawi, Klamath and other
tribes. The anthropologists Cora DuBois and Dorothy
Demetracopoulou spent a considerable amount of time collecting
Wintu myths. Other ethnologists collected stories from outlying
tribes, see for example the "Love Medicine-The Mt. Shasta Women"
story from the Chilula Tribe of the Coast Range. Often Mt.
Shasta is the site of action of some story, see for example B.
G. Rousseau's 1923 "What Happened When the Thunder God is
Mocked." Modern Native American story-tellers and scholars are
adding to the published Mt. Shasta Indian lore, describing
stories learned from tradition. Particularly interesting are
Darryl Babe Wilson's stories mentioning "Mis Misa," about the
spirit inside Mt. Shasta which holds in repose the balance of
the Universe. Theodoratus and LaPena, in their 1992 "Wintu
Sacred Geography" article elaborate the Wintu use of Mt. Shasta
in traditional tribal lore. See also Section 2. Native Americans
of the Mt. Shasta Region for additional Native American Mt.
Shasta legends.
16. Legends: Lemuria
The lowly primate, the lemur, was named after ancient Roman
mythological ghosts called 'lemures.' According to the Oxford
Classical Dictionary, 1970, there was a Roman festival called
'Lemuria.' But the modern name of 'Lemuria' was named for the
mammal lemur. In the mid-19th Century paleontologists coined the
term 'Lemuria' to describe a hypothetical continent, bridging
the Indian Ocean, which would have explained the migration of
lemurs from Madagascar to India. Lemuria was a continent which
submerged and was no longer to be seen. By the late 19th Century
occult theories had developed, mostly through the theosophists,
that the people of this lost continent of Lemuria were highly
advanced beings. The location of the folklore 'Lemuria' changed
over time to include much of the Pacific Ocean. In the 1880s a
Siskiyou County, California, resident named Frederick Spencer
Oliver wrote A Dweller on Two Planets, or, the Dividing of the
Way which described a secret city inside of Mt. Shasta, and in
passing mentioned Lemuria. Edgar Lucian Larkin, a writer and
astronomer, wrote in 1913 an article in which he reviewed the
Oliver book.
In 1925 a writer by the name of Selvius wrote "Descendants
of Lemuria: A Description of an Ancient Cult in America" which
was published in the Mystic Triangle, Aug., 1925 and which was
entirely about the mystic Lemurian village at Mt. Shasta.
Selvius reported that Larkin had seen the Lemurian village
through a telescope. In 1931 Wishar Spenle Cervé published a
widely read book entitled Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the
Pacific in which the Selvius material appeared in a slightly
elaborated fashion. The Lemurian–Mt. Shasta legend has developed
into one of Mt. Shasta's most prominent legends. The entries in
this section document the books and articles about Mt. Shasta
and its Lemurians.
Especially interesting from a historical standpoint is the
1960 book by 'Mother Mary' entitled "Atlantis Speaks Again." The
book discusses the publishing history of the Oliver manuscript,
replete with appearance of Phylos the Tibetan after the death of
Oliver. 'Mother Mary' was part of a tradition of people
associated with Frederick Spencer Oliver and the book contains
essays by Oliver himself, and contains as well reproductions of
the original Oliver manuscript.
17. Legends: Ascended Masters
Mount Shasta has been an inspiration to many people
interested in the Ascended Master teachings of Guy Warren
Ballard and his "I AM" religious activity. Ballard, writing
under the pseudonym Godfré Ray King, stated in his 1934 Unveiled
Mysteries that he met the Ascended Master Saint Germain on the
slopes of Mt. Shasta in 1930. The Ascended Masters, according to
Ballard, are great spiritual teachers who have mastered the
relationship between thought and feeling and have learned to
manifest the "Luminous Essence of Divine Love." These Ascended
Masters are said to have ascended to a higher dimension from
which they guard and help the evolving human race. The teachings
learned from Saint Germain, as presented in Ballard's books, the
fantastic parts notwithstanding, have an undeniable empowering
appeal to many persons. Ballard's books and religious movement
attracted many followers. Splinter groups based on similar
teachings have formed. Over the years, other authors, including
Nola Van Valer, Earlyne Chaney, Mah-Atman-Amsumata, Pearl
Dorris, and Elisabeth Clare Prophet, have written of their own
experiences with Ascended Masters on Mt. Shasta. Many of these
writings are of the 'channeling' genre.
Guy Warren Ballard's 1934 Unveiled Mysteries was the first
book to describe Mt. Shasta's most famous Ascended Master:
"Saint Germain." In the preface to Unveiled Mysteries, Ballard
states that Saint Germain "...is the same Great Masterful
'Presence' who worked at the Court of France previous to and
during the French Revolution..." Historically, there was a Comte
de Saint-Germain (the Count of Saint-Germain) who lived from
c.1710–c.1780, and who was, according to the 1964 Encyclopedia
Britannica, an 18th Century 'Wundermann' and adventurer who
traveled widely throughout Europe; he was very influential at
the Court of France, was a founder of freemasonry, and professed
the discovery of a liquid which could prolong life. He was not a
saint, however, he was a count. His family name was Saint-
Germain, a name derived from one of the many French villages and
places named in honor of Germain, a Catholic saint and 6th
Century Bishop of Paris. Thus the name of Mt. Shasta's "Saint
Germain" may be misleading to those looking for a historical
"saint." (Another Comte de Saint-Germain, 1707-1778, was a
famous French general whose life history is sometimes confused
with that of the 'Wundermann.')
Although the appearance in the 1930s of an 18th Century
European mystic on the slopes of Mt. Shasta might seem a bit
far-fetched, there is some cultural context for the event.
Maurice Magre wrote in his 1930 book The Return of the Magi:
"Between 1880 and 1900 it was admitted among all theosophists,
who at that time had become very numerous, particularly in
England and America, that the Comte de Saint Germain was still
alive, that he was still engaged in the spiritual development of
the West, and that those who sincerely took part in this
development had the possibility of meeting him." Guy Warren
Ballard's story of meeting the Ascended Master Saint Germain is
one of the most engaging legends of Mt. Shasta.
18. Legends: Other
This section contains a number of unrelated entries,
including material about the oft-mentioned bell legends, the
little people legends, and UFO legends. Some miscellaneous
entries, arguably termed legends, include an entry about two
Alaskan mountains named for Mt. Shasta, and an entry for the
1930s' slang phrase "From Mt. Shasta." Some of the materials
exhibit a rare originality, especially Caroling's comic-book
styled Mount Shasta and the Galaxy People. This section also
includes a number of miscellaneous entries which in one way or
another convey the mystic and spiritual expectations of some
visitors to Mt. Shasta.
19. Legends: Historical Interpretations & Reviews
Several authors have attempted to place the legends of Mt.
Shasta into a cultural or historical perspective. Foremost among
these works is Walter Kafton Minkel's 1989 Subterranean
Worlds... which explains in a scholarly manner how the Mt.
Shasta legends of a city inside of the mountain are part of a
long tradition of such legends from around the world. He states
that these kinds of legends serve to fulfill a basic and
necessary human need for myth. Not all of the entries in this
section attempt to explain the function of myth, but several of
them do at least attempt to explain why Mt. Shasta has such a
unusual panoply of legends. Lawerence W. Jorden Jr. said quite
simply, for example, that " A prolonged, quiet contemplation of
the peak tends to foster mysticism." Some authors, like Edwin
Bernbaum, have traveled around the world to sacred places of
pilgrimage and of natural beauty, and have attempted to explain
Mt. Shasta's legendary mystic appeal on the basis of their own
observations. A few of the books and articles in this section
contain general reviews of the unusual and amusing tales
associated with California's most legendary mountain. Noteworthy
is John Calderazzo's chapter "Eighteen Views of a Volcano: Mount Shasta,
California" in his book: "Where the Earth Begins: Volcanoes and Our Inner Lives."
20. Literature: Joaquin Miller
"There loomed Mount Shasta, with which my name, if
remembered at all, will be remembered." So wrote Joaquin Miller
in his 1873 classic Mt. Shasta novel, Life Amongst the Modocs:
Unwritten History. Miller was a young gold miner in the Mt.
Shasta region from 1854 until 1857. Remarkable among extant
Miller materials is his 1850s diary which, among other things,
records his living for an entire year in Squaw Valley on the
southern flank of Mt. Shasta. It was a year in which he lived
with an Indian woman among her tribe. His experience living
among the Indians, mostly out of contact with white people, gave
him an unprecedented sympathy for the Indian and for nature. In
later life Miller wrote book after book and poem after poem
utilizing the themes he had learned from experience during those
early years. Several of Miller's books, including the 1873
Unwritten History..., the 1884 Memorie and Rime, and the 1900
True Bear Stories, contain considerable autobiographical
material about his life at Mt. Shasta.
Note that Miller was a man far ahead of his times, and
critics up until the late 20th Century did not fully appreciate
his unconventional philosophy. Miller created a retreat for the
homeless, spearheaded the first California Arbor Day, personally
planted thousands of trees over a period of decades, founded an
artistic commune based on the teachings of silence and nature,
and wanted it to be known that he worked with his hands.
Miller's 1885 log cabin, which still stands in Rock Creek
National Park in Washington, D. C., and his Oakland, California
commune grounds, now known as Joaquin Miller Park, exist
together as a coast to coast testament to his philosophy. The
following entries were selected because they contain material
relevant to Miller's 1850s' life in the Mt. Shasta region.
Miller was a prolific writer and many of his most interesting
works have never been reprinted. It was in England in the 1870s
that Miller first became known as the 'Poet of the Sierras,' but
his 'Sierras' were really the mountains of the Mt. Shasta
region.
21. Literature: John Muir
John Muir's exceptional mental and physical stamina enabled
him to rigorously pursue, often in solitary fashion, the
exploration of California's mountains. In the Fall of 1874 and
the Spring of 1875 he climbed Mt. Shasta three times. Among the
entries listed in this section are Muir's pocket notebooks kept
during these climbs. His 1875 notebook contains many detailed
drawings of the Shasta region. In one case, on April 28, 1875,
he drew from the summit of Mt. Shasta a picture depicting an
approaching storm, a storm similar to the one which would two
days later, on another climb of the mountain, trap him and his
climbing partner Jerome Fay on the summit of Mt. Shasta. Also
listed in this section are the reports of A. F. Rodgers, who had
hired Muir and Fay in the Spring of 1875 to go and take summit
barometric readings. Rodgers wrote a fascinating report which
vividly details the appearance and condition of Muir and Fay
immediately following the overnight ordeal on April 30, 1875.
Muir himself wrote stories of the ordeal that were published in
several sources, including Harper's Magazine in 1877 and
Picturesque California in 1888.
Many of Muir's other published works describe Mt. Shasta.
His earliest Mt. Shasta writings were a series of five articles
printed in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin in 1874 and
1875; these have been edited and published by Robert Engberg as
part of John Muir: Summering in the Sierra (not the same book as
Muir's own book My First Summer in the Sierra). Muir was an
ardent preservationist. Ironically, Muir participated in the
hunting and killing of what were perhaps the last of the
region's Big Horn Sheep, as described in the Nov. 29, 1874
article entitled "Shasta Game." But Muir's developing sentiment
for preservation is also a part of these early articles—he says
exuberantly, for example, "Long may McCloud salmon swim!" in the
Nov. 29, 1874 article "Salmon Breeding: McCloud River." A man
far ahead of his time and a tireless worker, John Muir will be
remembered as an integral part of Mt. Shasta's past. William F.
and Maymie B. Kimes have written the definitive bibliography of
John Muir's writings. See also Michael Zanger's 1992 Mt. Shasta:
History, Legend & Lore, for descriptions of Muir's Mt. Shasta
climbs and a photograph showing Muir and Fay's signatures from
the summit register. Note that one of the best but little-known
Mt. Shasta stories, entitled "A Conversation with John Muir"
appeared in 1906 in the English magazine 'World's Work'
22. Literature: Novels, Plays, Essays
Mt. Shasta has been used as the setting for fiction and
non-fiction books and magazine articles. Travel writing was the
first literary genre to focus on Mt. Shasta. Among the earliest
of such travel writings were California publisher James Mason
Hutchings' 1857 personal description of the mountain, Fitz Hugh
Ludlow's uniquely written 1864 account of a two-week Mt. Shasta
sojourn with Albert Bierstadt, and R. E. Garczynski's Shasta
journey published in William Cullen Bryant's immensely popular
1872 Picturesque America. Travel writing continued throughout
the late 19th and all of the 20th Century, including works by
well-known authors like Mary Austin and English journalist-
artist William Simpson. Novels featuring Mt. Shasta began with
the 1873 Joaquin Miller classic Life Amongst the Modocs:
Unwritten History. Other 19th Century novelists such as Bram
Stoker, William Morrow Chambers, Daniel Boone Dumont, and Mary
Glascock, used Mt. Shasta as a setting for their romances and
adventure novels. See especially Duncan Cumming's 1897 "A Change
with the Seasons; or, an Episode of Castle Crags" for a little known but
creative work of American fiction about the lives of the well-
to-do San Franciscans who would come each year to summer at
Castle Crags tavern. Several remarkable works of 20th Century
prose stand out: actor Hal Holbrook's 1959 autobiographical
account of a summit climb, scientist Liberty Hyde Bailey's 1905
account of a Shasta sunrise, educator George Wharton James's
1914 philosophical account of the importance of Mt. Shasta as an
enduring teacher of California, and science-fiction writer
Robert Heinlein's imaginative 1940s' Shasta short-story. One
interesting French short story, untranslated unfortunately, details multiple levels of racism and
self-criticism among a black family living near the mountain. This story, by Maryse Conde, and
entitled "Mount Shasta, altitude 15,000 Pieds," somehow underscores a lack of deep emotional
conflict in most of the Mount Shasta literature. Nonetheless, the entries in this
section represent a wide variety of thoughts and emotions
provoked by the spectacular mountain setting.
23. Literature: Poetry
Mount Shasta as a symbol of high ideals, as a symbol of
God's domain, as a symbol of purity, and as an inspiring
presence, are just some of the varied themes which run through
the 19th and 20th Century poems about this majestic mountain. In
1854 John Rollin Ridge, a Cherokee Indian who later became
editor of the Sacramento Bee newspaper, wrote one of the
earliest Mt. Shasta poems; entitled Mount Shasta it became one
of the most famous California poems. Ridge's message was one for
the entire state, and the poem contains lines such as "And well
this Golden State shall thrive, if like Its own Mount Shasta,
Sovereign Law shall lift Itself in purer atmosphere—so high..."
The well-known abolitionist poet John Greenleaf Whittier, in
1863, used Shasta as a symbol of God's works: "Amidst the
glorious works of thine, The solemn minarets of Pine, And awful
Shasta's icy shrine,-Where swell thy hymns from wave and
gale..." Many Mt. Shasta poems are less abstract and more
personal in sentiment. Joaquin Miller, who lived from 1854-57
near Mt. Shasta, and who visited many times thereafter, wrote
several poems about his old home mountain. In his Shadows of
Shasta poem, reprinted in this section, one sees his recurring
theme of the 'Shadows,' or dark secrets, he saw inflicted on the
lives of the Indians at the hands of the whites: "In the place
where the grizzly reposes, Under peaks where a right is a
wrong...." See also Section 20. Literature: Joaquin Miller for
more of Miller's Mt. Shasta poems. Poets have expressed and
published their personal experience of Mt. Shasta for well over
130 years. Even publisher William Randolph Hearst could not
resist the creation of a poem eulogizing Mt. Shasta and the
rivers which flow off its slopes. In the main the poems in this
section are from the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Later 20th
Century poems, although numerous, are excluded due to limits of
space.
24. Literature: Children's Books
Three of the four books in this section are introductions
to the Cascade volcanoes. The fourth book, about Shasta the
cat, is not really about the mountain, though it may be admitted
that the soft sound of the name Shasta suits a kitten very well.
No other children's book about Mt. Shasta were found. There
should be more children's books about Mt. Shasta. Perhaps some
enterprising authors would like to write good children's books
to add to this section.
25. Recreation & Tourism
Mt. Shasta was one of California's great summer resorts
during the latter half of the 19th Century. The cultural elite
from San Francisco, as well as common folks from small towns in
the Sacramento Valley, came to enjoy the fresh air, the forests,
and the rivers. Here they could escape the heat of more
southerly sun-baked climates. Even before the railroad arrived
in 1886 there were tourist resorts for those that came to hunt,
fish, paint, and hike. After the railroad was built tourism
began in earnest. It was the railroad itself, the Southern
Pacific Company, which produced and distributed for more than
forty years scores of different materials featuring Mt. Shasta
and promoting the "Shasta Route" between San Francisco and
Portland. Mt. Shasta was not only a summer resort. In the
wintertime, especially in the 20th Century, skiing and winter
sports drew great numbers of people to enjoy the snow. This
section of the bibliography includes miscellaneous items, old
and new, pertaining to both summer and winter recreation and
tourism. Because so many materials exist about this subject,
only unusual or important items are included. Among them is a
1962 detailed State of California Mt. Shasta visitor's center
proposal, a multi-media State of California promotion campaign,
resort brochures from the 19th Century, modern climbing guides,
and so on. For guide-books to the natural history of Mt. Shasta,
however, see the Science sections of this bibliography. Note
that the successful resorts of the past had unique approaches to
tourism which went beyond standard "boosterism." There was often
a genuine understanding of the discriminating tourist's and
recreationist's wants and needs. For example, Chautauqua
meetings, popular nationwide, were held as part of summer
activities at Shasta Retreat. In all, a wealth of innovative
ideas and information about recreation and tourism can be
gleaned from these materials.
26. Environmental Issues
This section contains environmental impact statements,
wilderness proposals, The Wilderness Act, national and state
park proposals, government hearing testimony, editorials,
newspaper and magazine articles, and other materials, all of
which help document the many controversies over development of
Mt. Shasta. Environmental controversies pertaining to Mt. Shasta
have existed for over a hundred years. Joaquin Miller, in his
1873 Life Amongst the Modocs: Unwritten History, proposed making
Mt. Shasta the center of an Indian Republic. In January 1888,
the Yreka Journal reported a national park plan was being
proposed by the railroad, a plan that included Mt. Shasta, Black
Butte, Castle Crags, and much of the Sacramento River Canyon.
John Muir and John P. Irish both published articles in the 1888
Picturesque California outlining the need for preserving the
Shasta region. Most of the early controversies addressed the
entire region. As time progressed the environmental arguments
became more specific as to land and issues. In modern times
Native Americans have added their voices to various
controversies. The entries in this section are those that were
deemed integral to the history of concern over development of
Mt. Shasta. See Section 1. Comprehensive Histories, especially
Berenice Lamson's environmental issues-oriented Mt. Shasta, A
Regional History for a data-filled report about development on
the mountain, and Michael Zanger's 1992 Mt. Shasta, History,
Legends, and Lore, for a history of environmental issues. Time
did not allow for the location of many unpublished studies about
Mt. Shasta cited in Economic Research Associates' (San
Francisco) excellent Social and Economic Environment and
Baseline Assumptions for Mt. Shasta Ski Area Socio-economic
Impact Study...October, 1987; the studies listed included
several Mt. Shasta archaeological reconnaissance papers, ski
area market reports, land classification orders, etc.
27. Art: Fine Arts
Entries in this section either contain illustrations of Mt.
Shasta or contain information pertaining to the experiences of
various artists at Mt. Shasta. The earliest known artworks of
Mt. Shasta date from 1841, when both Alfred Agate and James
Dwight Dana sketched the mountain as part of their duties as
members of the Wilkes-Emmons overland expedition. Since then
literally hundreds of artists, including some of the best known
American artists of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, have
come to Mt. Shasta for inspiration. For an account of Mount
Shasta's extensive art history see Miesse: The Significance of
Mount Shasta as a Visual Resource in 19th and early 20th Century
California Art.
28. Art: Photography
The entries in this section include books and articles
which are relevant to the study of Mt. Shasta photography. Some
of America's best-known 19th and 20th Century photographers,
including Carlton Watkins, William Henry Jackson, Ansel Adams,
Edward Weston, and Imogen Cunningham have produced images of Mt.
Shasta, and their work is listed in this section. Mt. Shasta is
perhaps unique in California in having the unusual lens-shaped
lenticular clouds which, at certain times of the year, hover
over the mountain. The 1986 book Celestial Raise contains
perhaps the best collection of photographs of these lenticular
cloud formations. There are fine photographs of Mt. Shasta in
many books entered in other sections of this bibliography, see
for example Michael Zanger's extensively illustrated 1992 Mt.
Shasta: History, Legend and Lore. Individual unpublished 19th
and 20th Century photographs of Mt. Shasta, of which there must
be thousands, are not listed, though the College of the
Siskiyous Library does have a large collection of such pictures.
29. Audiovisual Materials
Mt. Shasta has been the subject of a wide array of
videorecordings, motion pictures, slide presentations, and sound
recordings. Several of the entries in this section contain
interviews with prominent local personalities, or contain
historical information not found anywhere else. Many of the
entries are about the mystic reputation of the mountain. Other
entries feature tourism, railroads, the forests, commerce, etc.,
all with Mt. Shasta featured at some point. Two of the more
widely distributed productions were the 1986 The Californians
advertising spots produced by the California Department of
Commerce, and the 1992 Rescue 911-The Box Canyon Incident
produced by CBS News. Not all of the entries have been located;
for example, neither the 1935 Lemuria: The Lost Continent, nor
the 1919 The Brute Breaker motion pictures have been seen.
Entries which are on reserve at the College of the Siskiyous
Library have a COS Media Center number following the entry,
e.g., [COS Media Center #VC-67-007].
30. Science: Geology & Climate
Materials in this section are mostly scientific reports of
the 20th Century. The more literary geological exploration
accounts by the great 19th geologists, such as Josiah Dwight
Whitney and Clarence King, will be found in Section 11.
Mountaineering: 19th Century, though James Dwight Dana's 1841
geological observations of Mt. Shasta will be found in Section
9. Early Exploration: American Government Expeditions, 1841-
1860. The pioneering geological studies of 20th Century
geologists Joseph Silas Diller and Howel Williams are well-
represented here; they set the parameters for future study.
Subjects studied by modern geologists on Mt. Shasta include
petrology, glaciation, mineralogy, magnetization, ancient
avalanches, mud slides, volcanic hazard potentials, soils,
geothermal activity, earthquakes, gravity, radiometric dating of
the rocks, water resources, and so on. Volcanic activity
prediction is of course an important topic, but many of the
studies relate more to basic questions of science, such as how
plate tectonics work, or how Mt. Shasta lavas give clues to the
composition of the inner earth.
Two contemporary geologists, Robert L. Christiansen and C.
Dan Miller, have written a considerable amount of material about
Mt. Shasta; their work is perhaps the most up-to-date reporting
of the geologic evolution of Mt. Shasta. A few books of popular
science which discuss Mt. Shasta, such as Stephen L. Harris's
1988 Fire Mountains of the West have been also been included as
entries. A few entries concern climate. Note that Mt. Shasta is
included in the 1992 Guinness Book of World Records for the
greatest snowfall ever recorded from a single storm (the storm
date was February 13-19, 1959).
31. Science: Botany
Mt. Shasta stands as if an island in the sky of northern
California. The higher reaches of the mountain are a unique
environment. Any such isolated habitat such as the heights of
Mt. Shasta holds the promise of containing plants and trees
which perhaps have evolved in some way independently of outside
influences. From the times of earliest exploration on, botanists
have desired to explore Mt. Shasta to see what grows upon its
slopes. Comparisons with the flora of other peaks and alpine
regions of the West helps give botanists insights into the
geographic distribution and evolution of the plant kingdom. The
Scottsman William Brackenridge, who discovered the California
Pitcher Plant (Darlingtonia californica) near the base of Castle
Crags in 1841, was the first botanist to cross over the slopes
of Mt. Shasta (see Section 9. Early Exploration: American
Government Expeditions, 1841-1860). During the latter half of
the 19th Century some of the most famous botanists of the time
came to Mt. Shasta. Scottish botanist John Jeffrey discovered
the Jeffrey Pine in the Shasta Valley, possibly on northern
slope of Mt. Shasta, in 1852. The famed American botanist Asa
Gray, and English botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, botanized on
Mt. Shasta with John Muir in 1877 (see Section 21. Literature:
John Muir). John Gill Lemmon, who climbed to the summit of
Shasta in 1879, later scientifically named the specific variety
of Red Fir trees he found upon the mountain's slopes as the
Shasta Red Fir (see also Section 11. Mountaineering 19th
Century). The California Academy of Science's botanist Alice
Eastwood climbed and botanized Shasta in 1893. C. Hart Merriam
led the 1898 Biological Survey (See Section 31. Science:
Zoology) and discovered several new species of plants which were
formally described by Edward Lee Greene in 1899. Mt. Shasta
offered the 19th Century botanists a chance to achieve some real
discoveries.
In the 20th Century more thorough studies of Mt. Shasta's
flora were conducted. One of the most complete was Lester J.
Matthes's 1942 The Plant Communities of Mount Shasta. At about
the same time the eminent Mt. Shasta botanist William Bridge
Cooke completed and published the first of his four-part Flora
of Mt. Shasta, a work which the late Dr. Cooke had planned to
compile as a one volume work. Dr. Cooke wrote often about Mt.
Shasta, as will immediately be evident from the number of
entries under his name. All in all, however, there are not that
many available studies on the flora of Mt. Shasta, a situation
in part due to the reality that the mountain does not have as
diverse a flora as the early botanists had hoped for. Note that
the entries in this section of the bibliography were selected on
the basis of their relevance to the flora of Mt. Shasta, but are
not entirely limited to scientific subjects. Marquiss Lloyd's
1931 article on the unique properties of the Shasta Red Fir as a
violin maker's perfect wood is an example of some of the more
popular subjects also covered in this section. Edward Stuhl's
exceptional 1981 publication Wildflowers of Mt. Shasta contains
many chapters on the botany of Mt. Shasta and includes
information about the "Phacelia cookei," a rare plant discovered
by W. B. Cooke and only found on Mt. Shasta (see Section 1.
Comprehensive Histories of Mt. Shasta).
32. Science: Zoology
The first zoologist to cross the slopes of Mt. Shasta was
artist-naturalist Titian Ramsay Peale. He was a member of the
1841 Wilkes-Emmons overland expedition. His mammalogy and
ornithology report, containing descriptions of the animals and
birds of southern Oregon and northern California, was published
in 1848 and is entered in Section 9. Early Exploration: American
Government Expeditions, 1841-1860. Incidentally, Peale was the
first to scientifically describe the "Mule Deer" and to do so he
used specimens collected during the 1841 overland journey. In
1860 John Feilner, working for the Smithsonian Institution,
studied the birds of the Shasta region. During 1883 and 1884
Charles Haskins Townsend roamed northern California. His Field
Notes on the Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles of Northern
California, published in 1887, contains some of the most
interesting of early naturalist accounts of Mt. Shasta. Among
other things Townsend writes about the unexpected company of a
bald eagle on the summit of Mt. Shasta. The Division of Biology
of the United States Department of Agriculture sent scientist C.
Hart Merriam to Mt. Shasta in 1898. Merriam's report, entitled
Results of a Biological Survey of Mount Shasta, California, was
published in 1899 and is a classic of Mt. Shasta science. (The
Division of Biology later became the U. S. Department of Fish
and Wildlife.)
By the late 19th Century Mt. Shasta's Big Horn Sheep,
Grizzly Bears, and Elk had been eliminated through predation and
disease. These largest of Mt. Shasta's creatures, for which the
mountain and the region were at one time well-known, have never
come back. For first-person Mt. Shasta accounts of these not-so-
long-gone great creatures, see the writings of Joaquin Miller
and John Muir in Sections 20 and 21 of this bibliography. In the
20th Century very few zoological studies specifically about Mt.
Shasta have been published. One interesting 20th Century
discovery was that the unique Hepburn variety of the Grey
Crowned finch was breeding only on Mt. Shasta and nowhere else
in the world. But in general during the 20th Century no great
discoveries have been reported about the zoology of Mt. Shasta.
Mt. Shasta continues to be a habitat for a great wealth of
creatures, who perhaps themselves are content in not being
disturbed by curious zoologists.
Geology ~ Environment ~ Native Americans ~ Folklore ~ History ~ Art ~ Literature
Recreation ~ Maps ~ Mount Shasta Collection ~ Bibliography ~ Lesson Plans ~ About Project
