OUR GREATEST NATIONAL MONUMENT 



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stratified ash from Katmai everywhere 

 lies on top of the deposits of this earlier 

 phase of the eruption, showing, of course, 

 that the latter had already been poured 

 forth before Katmai blew up (see p. 224) . 



The discovery of the Ten Thousand 

 Smokes, as described in The Geo- 

 graphic, furnished the first suggestion 

 that there were other phases of the erup- 

 tion of greater interest than the explosion 

 of Katmai; but any understanding of 

 what really occurred in those days of 

 early June, 19 12, involved so much study 

 that it has not been possible until now to 

 give any clear idea of the real nature of 

 the eruption, and even yet there is much 

 that must be left to conjecture, although 

 the general features stand out fairly 

 clearly. 



The task of interpreting the events of 

 this great eruption has been much the 

 more difficult because, so far as can be 

 found, nothing resembling it closely has 

 ever been recorded before. 



Since there were no witnesses of the 

 catastrophe, we are limited in framing 

 our account of its events to deductions 

 from the study of its effects on the sur- 

 rounding country. Indeed, it is hardly 

 probable that any observer would have 

 survived to tell the tale if he had been 

 near enough to see what actually hap- 

 pened. 



It will be understood, therefore, that 

 our account must of necessity be made up 

 of reasonable inferences and necessary 

 conclusions from evidence left behind 

 rather than of the narration of a series 

 of observed events, and it must be read 

 in this light. 



A GREEN VALLEY SUDDENLY TRANSFORMED 

 INTO A NEST OE VOLCANOES 



Some time before the beginning of the 

 terrific explosions whose sounds first an- 

 nounced to the world that an eruption 

 was in progress, a host of small volcanoes 

 burst open in the floor of the green valley 

 through which ran the Katmai Trail. The 

 date is unknown, but was probably near 

 to the first of June, 1912 (see page 271). 



In the very formation of these vents, 

 the eruption presented a feature unusual 

 in volcanic phenomena; for this was no 

 reawakening of dormant vents, such as 

 constitutes the vast majority of eruptions, 

 but rather the formation of new vol- 



canoes in areas where none had existed 

 previously. If there had been nothing 

 else remarkable about the eruption, this 

 alone would have set it off as a note- 

 worthy event. 



These new volcanoes consisted simply 

 of holes blown through the floor of the 

 valley, not of hills or mountains with 

 craters at their tops. How many of them 

 there were or how they may have looked 

 and acted when they first burst open, we 

 have no means of knowing, but there is 

 reason to believe that they constituted 

 literally a host in number, and that they 

 consisted at first merely of lines of cra- 

 teriform holes blown through the floor 

 of the valley, resembling, perhaps, the 

 close-set shell-holes of a battlefield, 

 though, of course, much larger than the 

 craters produced by the explosion of even 

 the biggest shells. Whatever their origi- 

 nal appearance, it is certain that soon 

 after their formation they began to throw 

 out ash and pumice in enormous quanti- 

 ties. 



A SPECTACLE THAT PASSES THE POWERS 

 OE THE IMAGINATION 



The Ten Thousand Smokes, wonderful 

 as they are at their best, can give no idea 

 of what the valley must have looked like 

 in this initial stage. In addition to 

 myriads of fumaroles, probably greater 

 than any that now remain, scores or hun- 

 dreds of vents must have been belching 

 forth incandescent material in veritable 

 torrents of fire. 



Prodigious quantities of red-hot solids 

 and liquids, sand and stone, masses of 

 fluid or semifluid lava, issued from the 

 vents and poured out on the ground, fol- 

 lowing the slope in rolling, tumbling fiery 

 torrents that consumed everything they 

 touched. 



In the first stage, if one could have 

 seen it, many separate volcanoes would 

 have appeared in different parts of the 

 valley, each pouring forth its own con- 

 tribution to the general chaos. 



From each there was probably a great 

 black cloud rising to a considerable height 

 in innumerable, ever-expanding, lobulated 

 convolutions. From analogy with other 

 eruptions, we may suppose that electrical 

 displays of weird grandeur accompanied 

 the clouds rising from the various vents. 



On careful observation it would have 



