The lake averages less than two miles in width, and seems all the narrower for being shut in between gigantic mountains. For some miles we pass under the precipitous cliffs of Goat Mountain, where formerly numerous herds of mountain goats found pasturage. At every bend in the lake the views become more grand and inspiring. Here is a dashing stream, roaring in a mad tumble over the boulders into the quiet lake--a stream which has its source perhaps a mile above, in some snow-bank hidden from sight by the steep, rocky walls. Next a waterfall comes into view, pouring over a vertical cliff into the lake. Occasionally snow-clad peaks appear, but only to disappear again behind the near mountains. What pleasant spots we notice for camping by the ice-cold streams! They are full of brook trout, while larger fish are to be found in the lake. At the head of this body of water there is a little hotel for the accommodation of visitors, and the Stehekin River, which is steadily at work filling up the lake, hurries past its doors. Since the melting of the glacier which once filled the canon, the river has built a delta fully half a mile out into the water. The lake has the appearance of filling an old river valley or canon. Perhaps the latter is the better name because the bed is so narrow and deep. This canon winds among the mountains just like other canons in which rivers are flowing, but it has no outlet at the present time. In some way a dam has been formed, and the canon, filling with water to the top of the dam, has become a lake. Soundings have shown that the water is fourteen hundred feet deep; that is, a little more than a quarter of a mile. With the exception of Crater Lake, in Oregon, this is the deepest body of water in the United States. It is also interesting to note that the bottom of the lake is fully three hundred feet below the level of the ocean. How could a river cut a channel for itself so far below the ocean level? Rivers cannot do work of this kind unless they have a swift current; moreover, as they empty into the ocean, their beds must be above sea level. Some people think that the great glacier, which certainly at some time occupied the depression in which the lake lies, dug out the canon. This glacier was over three thousand feet in thickness, for the rocks are grooved and polished to a height of nearly two thousand feet above the surface of the water. It is, nevertheless, improbable that the glacier did anything more than deepen and widen the canon somewhat. It was certainly made, as we at first supposed, by a river which flowed through it at some remote period. At that time the land of our Pacific coast must have stood many hundred feet higher than it does now. [Illustration: FIG. 59.--GOAT MOUNTAIN, NORTH SHORE OF LAKE CHELAN]