Nov., 1918] Recovery of Vegetation at Kodiak 3 



papers, the Ohio Journal of Science has undertaken the pub- 

 lication under an agreement whereby the Geographic Society 

 assumes the major share of the expense. 



The eruption of Katmai and its effects on vegetation have 

 been discussed in previous papers. 1 " 2 " 3 The present paper is 

 presented as a more detailed record than could be given in 

 the general account of the remarkable recovery shown by 

 the plants buried under the ashfall at a great distance from 

 the vent. 



"GREEN KODIAK" TRANSFORMED TO A DESERT. 



It will be recalled that although a hundred miles from the 

 Volcano, Kodiak was covered about a foot deep by the fall of 

 ash, which here has the character of fine sand. The effect of 

 this blanket of ash, coming as it did on June 6, just as the 

 plants were putting forth their spring growth, was to strike 

 down all herbaceous growth, giving "Green Kodiak" the 

 appearance of a pine barren, devoid of vegetation except 

 for the trees and bushes which stuck through the ash uninjured. 

 To everyone who visited Kodiak during the first two seasons 

 after the eruption, the damage done to vegetation seemed 

 irreparable. 



It was during this period that I first saw Kodiak in June, 

 1913, almost exactly a year after the eruption. It was indeed 

 a bleak and desolate prospect. Outside the forest the country 

 had the appearance of a desert, whose gray-brown slopes were 

 relieved only here and there by spots of green where some alder 

 or willow stuck through the ashy blanket (see page 4), or on 

 some steep slope where the ash had been washed off. Lupines, 

 fireweeds, and other strong-stemmed perennials had, to be 

 sure, come up through the ash here and there, but they were 

 not abundant enough to have much effect on the landscape. 

 Within the forest the prospect was less desolate because the 

 spruces stood up out of the ash in something like their original 

 condition, but the undergrowth beneath them was gone and 



1 Rigg, G. B. The Effects of the Katmai Eruption on Marine Vegetation. 

 Science 40 : 509-513. 1914. 



2 Griggs, Robert F. The Effect of the Eruption of Katmai on Land Vegetation. 

 Bull. Am. Geogr. Soc. 47: 193-203; Figs. 1-10. 1915. 



3 , The Eruption of Katmai. Nature 101: 497. 22 Aug., 1918. 



