Dec, 1918] Are the Ten Thousand Smokes Real Volcanoes? 99 



comment on the two hypotheses themselves. Everyone would 

 prefer to explain the Valley as a superficial phenomenon, if 

 such an explanation is possible, for that would bring into play 

 nothing unusual in volcanic phenomena and would involve 

 no far reaching theories. If, on the other hand, it is held that 

 the smokes are truly volcanic, then it will have to be admitted 

 that the formation of the Valley was an event without parallel 

 among historic eruptions. More than that it would raise some 

 fundamental questions concerning the nature of volcanism 

 in general. Recognizing this situation, one ought to adopt 

 the simpler hypothesis if it is at all possible to bring the facts 

 into harmony with it. We shall begin, therefore, by marshalling 

 the facts which support this view. 



The very position of the smokes, in the bottom of a valley, 

 suggests at once the likelihood of their being secondary products 

 emanating from a stream of lava that has flowed down the 

 Valley. If there had been any notable flow of lava toward 

 the Bering Sea in connection with the eruption of Katmai, 

 it would certainly have occupied a position not far different 

 from the activity with which we are dealing. Truly volcanic 

 vents, on the other hand, are in the great majority of cases 

 situated on mountain tops rather than in vallej^s, although 

 there is nothing to prevent their bursting through the floor of 

 a valley. 



PRACTICALLY ALL SURFACE WATER EVAPORATED IN THE 



HOT VALLEY. 



The surface water hypothesis finds its strongest support in 

 the indubitable fact that practically no water drains out of 

 the Valley into the streams below. It is situated in a region 

 of unusually heavy rainfall; half a dozen glaciers discharge their 

 streams into it; and there are many square miles of snowfields 

 which, during the warm weather of the summer, give forth 

 a large volume of water. Several good sized streams start 

 bravely out from the glaciers into the Valley, but as they course 

 down their hot beds they dwindle until at the end of the Valley 

 their united volumn forms a mud-choked brook only two feet 

 wide and two inches deep. At times this stream probably 

 stops altogether. How unusual this is in this country may be 

 seen by comparing this stream with Martin Creek, whose 

 basin is only half as large and contains no such notable glaciers. 



