THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



169 



are so much lower comparatively as to 

 make their craters inferior to Katmai, 

 from a scenic point of view. The tre- 

 mendous depth more than any other fea- 

 ture impresses the beholder of Katmai. 



Moreover, if one recalls the fact that 

 the beautiful blue of the Katmai lakes 

 and the wonderful canyon of Katmai 

 River, which is almost as deep as the 

 Grand Canyon, lie in full view from the 

 crater rim, he will recognize that for sub- 

 limity of scenery this place has no equal 

 in the whole world. 



ALL OF THE BUILDINGS OF GREATER NEW 

 YORK WOULD NOT FILL THE CRATER 



Statistical comparisons of objects, so 

 far from the experience of most people, 

 can give, however, no conception of their 

 real magnitude. Our comparisons must 

 be with objects and places within our 

 every-day experience. As I sought for 

 some familiar object big enough to serve 

 as a basis of comparison with a hole of 

 such enormous dimensions, I remembered 

 the experience of my first attempt to see 

 New York City afoot. I can never for- 

 get my bewilderment at the endless rows 

 of closely bunt blocks, series on series, 

 and how I found myself physically ex- 

 hausted long before I had begun so much 

 as to inspect the city in detail. 



Here, then, is an almost inexhaustible 

 supply of objects, large enough to serve 

 as units for the measurement of cubic 

 capacity uf almost unlimited dimensions. 

 If one could pick up the blocks of build- 

 ings of New York one by one and drop 

 them into the crater of Katmai, how 

 many would be required to fill it? 



The truth is that if a typical New York 

 tenement block should be set bodily into 

 the crater of Katmai it would be but a 

 drop in the bucket. But the tenement 

 houses are relatively insignificant in com- 

 parison with the skyscrapers of lower 

 New York. How would they appear in 

 the crater? One must answer that it is 

 doubtful whether all of the skyscrapers 

 of New York together would fill the lake 

 at the bottom of the abyss. 



pnotograph by Paul R. Hagelbarger 

 OUR FLAG, WHICH FLEW ALL SUMMER 

 FROM THE LOOKOUT AT BASE CAMP, 

 BY TFIE SEA 



If one could imagine himself really 

 trying to fill the crater with the buildings 

 of New York he would find that if he 

 dropped them in, block by block, the 

 task would be so long that he would soon 

 want to begin operations on a larger 

 scale, cutting off bigger and bigger slices 

 of the city, as he worked up town. 



Even so, he would be astonished at the 

 capacity of the hole, for after he had 

 made a clean sweep of Manhattan Island 

 he would find that he had only begun on 

 his job ! He would have to cross the 

 river and continue through Brooklyn, 

 then take the Bronx, and all the other 



boroughs of Greater 



New York. And if 

 every single structure erected by man in 

 this great city were deposited in the 

 crater they would by no means fill the 

 vast abyss. On the contrary, the hole 

 that remained would still be a good deal 

 more than twice as large as Kilauea ! 



