SCIENTIFIC RESULTS OF THE KATMAI EXPEDITIONS OF THE: 

 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. 



VIII. A STUDY OF TEMPERATURES IN THE VALLEY 

 OF TEN THOUSAND SMOKES. 



JASPER D. SAYRE AND PAUL R. HAGELBARGER. 



The most serious failure of the expedition of 1917 was its 

 inability to measure the temperatures of the volcanoes in the 

 Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The Smokes were so much 

 hotter than had been anticipated that the expedition found 

 itself without the apparatus necessary for their measurement. 

 An ordinary mercury thermometer, registering up to 350 C.,, 

 was all that had been provided. The top of this was soon 

 broken, but before this accident occurred, it had been discovered 

 .that many of the temperatures were beyond the range of this 

 instrument, or at least so near the limit of its readings that 

 it was not considered safe to immerse it in the hot vapors 

 long enough to allow the mercury to expand fully for fear of 

 bursting the tube. 



One of the principal objectives of the Expedition of 1918, 

 which was undertaken by the authors, was therefore the study 

 of the temperatures of the vents in the Valley. 



In this project, as well as in the chemical study of the 

 volcanic gases, the expeditions were aided by the Geophysical 

 Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, which undertook to 

 supply the necessary equipment. But on account of the war 

 considerable difficulty was experienced in securing the requisite 

 instruments. Potentiometers of the Leeds and Northrop type 

 were not to be had. It was indeed by the narrowest margin that 

 any pyrometers were obtained at all. Up to within twenty-four 

 hours of the departure of the expedition we had not succeeded 

 in obtaining any instruments whatever. But on the last day a 

 pyrovolter from the Pyrolectric Instrument Company, of 

 Trenton, New Jersey, and a pyrometer from the Hoskins 

 Manufacturing Company, of Detroit, arrived. 



Although such hasty tests as could be made amid the hurry 

 of the last preparations for departure indicated that both 

 instruments were in working order, it was not possible to gain 



249 



