VALLEY OF SMOKE.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1424, 8 November 1923, Page 3

VALLEY OF SMOKE.

A WINDER OF ALASKA.

WEIRD THERMAL AREA

Away in Alaska, far removed from the haunts of men, and unseen and unexplored except by a little group of American scientists, is one ,of the most thrilling natural wonders of the world. It is the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a great area 50 square miles in extent which is broken up by hundreds of thousands of openings and vents, through which pour out incessantly hot gases from the fiery, molten material that lies deep down in the earth below.

The region has been discovered only in recent years, and it became known through a gigantic eruption of Mount Katmai, the Alaska volcano, which poured out ashes and dust that fell all over North-Western America. That was in June, 1912, and for a long time it was not known where the ashes came from or what mountain had been in eruption. Katmai was unknown at that time. Everyone in the United States felt the effects of the eruption, for the summer of 1912 was exceptionally cold and damp, which the scientists attribute to the interception of so much sunlight by the dust from the volcano. This dust travelled round the world.

The American National Geographic Society decided to send an expedition to Alaska to investigate matters, and the results have just been published. It appears that for some time a suffocating blanket of incandescent sand burst through vents in the floor of the valley, and then there was a terrific explosion that blew off the top of the volcano, at least two cubic miles of material being hurled into the air; and, as the scientific investigators say, its present whereabouts is a mystery. jVebv Kind of Gas 1 Stove.

The valley became perforated with fumaroles, or vents, and round these are incrustations of great beauty and many colours. Masses of yellow sulphur mingle with bright red ash and blue and white siliceous matter, to give a brilliant rainbow effect. The fumaroles pour out hot gas and steam of very high temperatures. In some of them lead and zinc can be melted, and aluminium vessels placed in the gases pouring out of them become soft. One vent was found to have a temperature of nearly 1200 degrees Fahrenheit. It is interesting, by way of comparison, to note that some of the lava of Etna was recently ascertained by Italian scientists to have a temperature of over 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. The party of explorers harnessed some of these holes for use and cooked their meals over them as over gas stoves.

The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes is unique. To compare it with anything at all analogous we must go hack to O eologic times. In the size of the vents and the quantity of smoke given off the valley is far beyond any other volcanic district on earth. Explorers tell us that the sum total of the emanations from all other volcanoes of the American continent, from the Aleutian Islands iij the north to Patagonia in the south, except during rare periods of dangerous eruption, is less than is given off within the radius of one’s vision from the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Drinking water was obtained by the explorers by squeezing it out of pumice.

Strangely enough, when the great eruption took place no one was killed, but the fact is that no people, natives or white men, live near the volcano.