at they give
birth to rivers that start on their journey beneath the sun, full-grown
and perfect without any childhood. Thus the Shasta River issues from
a large lake-like spring in Shasta Valley, and about two thirds of the
volume of the McCloud gushes forth in a grand spring on the east side of
the mountain, a few miles back from its immediate base.

To find the big spring of the McCloud, or "Mud Glacier," which you will
know by its size (it being the largest on the east side), you make your
way through sunny, parklike woods of yellow pine, and a shaggy growth
of chaparral, and come in a few hours to the river flowing in a gorge of
moderate depth, cut abruptly down into the lava plain. Should the volume
of the stream where you strike it seem small, then you will know that
you are above the spring; if large, nearly equal to its volume at its
confluence with the Pitt River, then you are below it; and in either
case have only to follow the river up or down until you come to it.

Under certain conditions you may hear the roar of the water rushing from
the rock at a distance of half a mile, or even more; or you may not
hear it until within a few rods. It comes in a grand, eager gush from a
horizontal seam in the face of the wall of the river gorge in the form
of a partially interrupted sheet nearly seventy-five yards in width, and
at a height above the riverbed of about forty feet, as nearly as I could
make out without the means of exact measurement. For about fifty yards
this flat current is in one unbroken sheet, and flows in a lacework of
plashing, upleaping spray over boulders that are clad in green silky
algae and water mosses to meet the smaller part of the river, which
takes its rise farther up. Joining the river at right angles to its
course, it at once swells its volume to three times its size above the
spring.

The vivid green of the boulders beneath the water is very striking, and
colors the entire stream with the exception of the portions broken into
foam. The color is chiefly due to a species of algae which seems common
in springs of this sort. That any kind of plant can hold on and grow
beneath the wear of so boisterous a current seems truly wonderful, even
after taking into consideration the freedom of the water from cutting
drift, and the constance of its volume and temperature throughout the
year. The temperature is about 45 degrees, and the height of the river
above the sea is here about three thousand