V 



V" 





Photograph by 1>. B. Church 

 TIIIv GLOOMY STRETCHES 0E SOLUKA CREEK : TREES ALL DEAD 



I must confess that even after many crossings of this sinister stream without mishap 

 I could never plunge in without a shudder of dread. So wide that from the middle we 

 could see neither shore, its swift current everywhere churning the quicksand, it presents a 

 formidable obstacle to a man carrying a pack. I was in constant fear lest some member of 

 the party would be mired in its depths, for, although we seldom sank below our knees, we 

 could plunge the full length of our alpenstock into the quicksand anywhere without finding 

 bottom (see text, page 35). 



peared. Beyond that point there were no 

 signs of animal life, except a pair of bald 

 eagles, which reconnoitered our camp the 

 first night, a few mosquitos, and, curi- 

 ously enough, a humming-bird moth, 

 which seemed strangely out of place in 

 such a valley of death. 



Clouds hung so low that everything 

 above a thousand feet was obscured, but 

 as we pushed up into the valley a feeling 

 of tremendous awe possessed us. We 

 had quite exhausted our stock of super- 

 latives in the lower valley and found our- 

 selves altogether without means of ex- 

 pressing the feelings that arose in us or 

 of describing the scene before us. 



.MORE EVIDENCE OF A TREMENDOUS 

 FLOOD 



As we proceeded, evidences of flood 

 damage rapidly increased : but we noticed 

 that none of the tributary streams had 



been affected, and when we reached the 

 forks of the river we found that the 

 whole flood had come down from under 

 the volcano itself, wreaking havoc in its 

 way. A deep channel had been eroded 

 in the pumice deposits. Part of the way 

 it had washed out all of the pumice and 

 had cut into its original bed besides. 



For miles where thick forests had stood 

 the trees were sheared off at the surface 

 of the ash (see picture on page 42, taken 

 a year later, after the stream had cut 

 away the pumice, exposing the stumps). 

 The few trees which remained were bent, 

 twisted, splintered, and broken in every 

 describable manner. In places, sheltered 

 from the extreme fury of the waters, the 

 trees w r ere piled high with driftwood. 



The volume of water had been enor- 

 mous. We found bigb-water marks 

 25 feet above the bed of the stream 

 where the valley was two miles wide. 



38 



