Vol. XL, No. 3 



WASHINGTON 



September, 1921 



THE 



MATD0MAL 

 KAPHHG 



AGAZI 



COPYRIGHT. ! 92 1 . BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. WASHINGTON. D. C. 



OUR GREATEST NATIONAL MONUMENT* 



The National Geographic Society Completes Its Explora- 

 tions in the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes 



By Robert F. Griggs 



Director of the Katmai Expeditions of the National Geographic Society 



FROM the first accounts of the 

 explosion of Katmai Volcano, in 

 Alaska, in June, 1912, it was clear 

 that it must rank among the dozen great- 

 est historic eruptions. Nevertheless, these 

 early narratives contained no accounts of 

 the events of the eruption itself, but were 

 confined to the description of its effects 

 at great distances. 



Closer inspection was not needed to 

 establish the rank of the eruption, for it 

 was evident that a cataclysm which buried 

 towns a hundred miles away under a foot 

 of ashes, whose concussions were so loud 

 as to excite the comment of people at a 

 distance of 750 miles, whose explosions 

 threw such a quantity of dust into the 

 upper atmosphere as seriously to diminish 

 the intensity of sunlight for many months 

 throughout the whole Northern Hemi- 

 sphere, must have been among the great- 

 est known to man. 



Yet, tremendous as must have been the 

 outbreak that produced such effects, it 

 has gradually become certain, as the ex- 

 peditions sent out by the National Geo- 



graphic Society have explored the country 

 round about, that the explosion of Katmai 

 itself was by no means the most remark- 

 able feature of this tremendous eruption. 

 It is too much to claim that the eviscera- 

 tion of Katmai was only a subordinate 

 outbreak consequent upon the main dis- 

 turbance, yet it is certain that before 

 Katmai blew up another eruption, itself 

 of the first magnitude, had already oc- 

 curred at a distance of some miles from 

 that volcano. 



EXPLOSION OF KATMAI MERELY FINAL ACT 

 IN THE ERUPTION 



However the relative importance of the 

 eruption giving rise to the Ten Thousand 

 Smokes as compared with the explosion 

 of Katmai may be judged, it is certain 

 that the disturbance did not begin, as 

 would naturally be supposed, with the big 

 explosion. That was rather the closing 

 act in the drama, the sequel to eruptions 

 from the floors of valleys at a consider- 

 able distance from Katmai. 



This is proven by the fact that the 



*Members of The Society will recall that the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes was dis- 

 covered by a National Geographic Expedition. The reports of The Society's six Katmai 

 expeditions contain all the information that has been published covering the district. (See 

 the National Geographic Magazine for January, 1917, and February, 1918.) These accounts 

 gave such clear evidence of the unparalleled interest of the region that, by proclamation of 

 the President of the United States, it was promptly added to our National Park System as 

 the Katmai National Monument. (See National Geographic Magazine for April, 1919.) 



The only comprehensive account of the eruption was likewise prepared by a National 

 Geographic Society Expedition and published in The Society's Magazine in February, 1913. 



