The Daily Alaska Empire

It Wasn't Katmai Which Blew Up, But Little Mt. Mageik

KODIAK, July 26. —(AP)— An airline pilot landed here last night with word that Mt. Mageik, not Mt. Katmai as first reported, is the active volcano on the Alaska Peninsula.

The volcano erupted Tuesday with clouds of smoke and ash.

Alaska Airlines pilot Vance Daly made a second flight over the area yesterday. He reported an "atom bomb-like cloud of smoke" arising from Mt. Mageik, several miles southwest of Katmai, the volcano which caused widespread damage in its 1912 eruption.

Both volcanoes are near the Valley of 10,000 Smokes, northwest of Kodiak Island across Shelikof Strait. Mt. Mageik is 1,250-feet high, overshadowed by 7,000-foot Mt. Katmai.

Daly said ash continues to fall on Kukak, a cannery on the mainland coast, but residents have not been evacuated.

Two Seattle men, Charles P. Turner and Larry Freeburn, accompanied Daly on the flight.

Samples of drinking water from the vicinity of the volcano were to be tested at the naval base here.

Daly, who brought back the samples, had reported after his first flight the crater still smoking so that visibility was cut to two miles. He said fine ash and smoke was hanging over a 100-mile area.

No injuries to residents in the area have been reported.