Contributions in geographical exploration . no trace of it has been found by any of the parties thathave explored the district. NO DI^\INAGE AREA FROM WHICH IT COlLD HAVE BEENCOXCEXTI^ATEI). Such an assumption immediately raises one of the difficultiesthat confronted us in our first efforts to find a source for the mudof the Valley. The area of the broad Valley is so great, inpro])ortion to the steep slopes of the surrounding mountains,that there is no tributary drainage area around its ui)per endlarge enough to have served as a collecting ground from whichthe mud could have come. The mud flow
Contributions in geographical exploration . no trace of it has been found by any of the parties thathave explored the district. NO DI^\INAGE AREA FROM WHICH IT COlLD HAVE BEENCOXCEXTI^ATEI). Such an assumption immediately raises one of the difficultiesthat confronted us in our first efforts to find a source for the mudof the Valley. The area of the broad Valley is so great, inpro])ortion to the steep slopes of the surrounding mountains,that there is no tributary drainage area around its ui)per endlarge enough to have served as a collecting ground from whichthe mud could have come. The mud flow thus covers almosthalf of the drainage area from which it could have come. Itsarea is 53 square miles, while that of the whole basin is only110 square miles. If these mountain sides suiii)lied the materialthat now covers the \alley, they must have been everywherecovered to a depth approximately equivalent to the ])resentthickness of the tuff of the Vallev. i. at least 50 feet. This is 13G The Ohio Journal of Science [Vol. XIX, No. 2,. & o S. CO ^ o 2, >. ?^ oc CO. CXI «-« go Dec, 1918] The Great Hot Mud Flow 137 on the impossible assumption that the wiiole of every slopetributary to the Valley furnished its share of the mud. Whereasit is manifest, from its gravitational relations and the positionof the high mud marks, that the mud eould by no ehanee havecome from more than a small fraction of the watershed, (7square miles). The contrast between the Great Mud Flowand the Katmai Mud Flow in this matter is very strikingindeed, for in that case the collecting ground, fo square miles),was eight times as great as the area at present covered by themud, ( square miles). See map, jjage 138. But let us waivethis difficulty and go on with the consideration of the situationassumed. NO \vatp:r sufficient to liquify Till-: mid if tiiic m.\tkki.\l WERE PRESENT. To transform such a vast quantity of dry tuff or dust intomud would require an equall
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