THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



119 



their eyes with close-fitting goggles; but 

 the leader could not avail himself of that 

 relief because of the necessity of keeping 

 to the trail, which in places was com- 

 pletely drifted over. Fortunately this 

 lasted only round the shoulder of Obser- 

 vation Mountain, and from there on the 

 going was comparatively easy. 



We later found, however, that this was 

 by no means an extreme wind for this re- 

 gion. On another occasion the men, after 

 starting, were unable to make it and had 

 to turn back. The wind gauge at the 

 sheltered camp that day registered 60 

 miles an hour steadily, and much higher 

 on the gusts. 



MILLIONS OF VOLCANIC VENTS 



When this year's party reached the val- 

 ley, the effect on the men was stupendous. 

 None had imagined anything nearly so 

 wonderful. Every one agreed that no 

 description could convey any conception 

 of its immensity or grandeur. 



I found that my matter-of-fact chemist 

 was counting the smokes to see whether I 

 had been justified in asserting that there 

 were ten thousand of them. He soon an- 

 nounced that I was quite well inside the 

 number. There are certainly many times 

 ten thousand to be seen, even on a clear 

 day, and when the weather is moist 

 myriads more appear, for then the smoke 

 from the millions of little holes whose 

 gases ordinarily are invisible condense 

 until there are a thousand times ten 

 thousand. 



One member of the party, who having 

 traveled considerably and found many of 

 the sights of the world overdrawn, was 

 somewhat skeptical in advance about the 

 Ten Thousand Smokes. When once he 

 felt its thrall, however, he repeated over 

 and over again, "Why, you couldn't ex- 

 aggerate it." This statement is perfectly 

 true. While the statistics of length, area, 

 etc., could be falsified, the enlarged fig- 

 ures could no more convey any idea of 

 the immensity of the new wonderland 

 than can the real dimensions. 



This is one of the greatest wonders of 

 the world, if not indeed the very greatest 

 of all the wonders on the face of the 

 earth. The valley cannot be described; 

 only after one has spent many days within 



its confines does one begin to grasp the 

 proportions. All of these comments were 

 made on first sight. We had not yet really 

 seen the valley ourselves. 



OVERAWED BY THE WONDERFUL VALLEY 



The sensation of wonder and admira- 

 tion, which came first to all, soon gave 

 way to one of stupefaction. The magni- 

 tude of the phenomena simply overcame 

 us. As we moved to any corner of the 

 valley, what we had supposed from a dis- 

 tance to be little fumaroles turned out 

 monster vents, each group more wonder- 

 ful a spectacle than the whole, seen in 

 panorama, so inconceivably vast is the 

 volcanic region. 



No amount of experience seemed suffi- 

 cient to enable us to grasp proportions of 

 this enormous safety-valve. 



For the first few days we were over- 

 awed. For a while we simply could not 

 think or act in the ordinary way. At 

 night I would curse myself, as I lay in 

 my blankets, and make a list of the things 

 I wanted to do the next day ; but when 

 the morning came I could not move my- 

 self to action. I could only look and 

 gape.^ 



Shipley, the chemist, was easily the 

 most self-possessed of the crowd. But 

 for him we probably would have turned 

 around and come home without any of 

 the scientific material we had gone to col- 

 lect. After all, the whole valley is very 

 much of a gigantic chemical laboratory, 

 and perhaps that accounts for his greater 

 command of himself. Yet on the third 

 day he remarked that "he did not feel 

 like monkeying with his little bottles of 

 chemicals." 



X — was frankly scared to death. He 

 did what I told him, but except when told 

 to do something he sat in a dull-eyed 

 stupor, like one at the funeral of his 

 sweetheart, from which no efforts of ours 

 could rouse him. I can only guess the 

 effort it must have cost him to go up to 

 the fumaroles and get pictures of them. 

 He said himself that he expected to go 

 crazy before he got out again. He had 

 to be relieved and sent down to the lower 

 camp before he regained his nerve, but in 

 the end had as good command of himself 

 as any of us. 



