Although Washington audiences have received the immediate cultural benefits of these recitals, the presentation of the programs has resulted in greater enjoyment and understanding of Latin American music beyond the community. The concerts have been instrumental in demonstrating to musicians, music students, and critics in the United States the quality

of much untried music and have stimulated visiting Latin American musicians toward further interpretation of the music of their own and neighbor countries. [ When radio broadcasting becomes an indispensable part of future concerts, another effective contribution to interAmerican music exchange will have been made.

ON FEBRUARY 20, 1943, a volcano burst out of the cornfield of farmer Dionisio Pulido near the village of Paricutín in the State of Michoacán, Mexico. Violent earthquakes had given warning. But the village folk of this picturesque region of corn and pine were not prepared for what was to come, because in their memory no volcano had occurred before.

Their first knowledge of what was happening came with the thing itself, as they watched great puffs of smoke and fire shoot skyward, throwing out great showers of volcanic bombs. (In 10 months' time they built up a cone 1,500 feet high.) Fine grained volcanic "ash" rode the columns of violently rolling, turbulent clouds. Then, as the clouds cooled off, ash rained down over the countryside. Some ash fell as far as Mexico City, about 200 miles away.

Reprinted from Soil Conservation, June-July 1946. Official organ of the Soil Conservation Service, United States Department of Agriculture.

The authors are assistant chief, Soil Conservation Service, Washington, D. C., and director, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, Ogden, Utah, respectively. The material for this article was obtained while the authors were on leave from the Federal Government, with travel expenses paid by the National Research Council.

Near the volcano the ash layer increased rapidly throughout the remainder of 1943, but ash fall diminished thereafter.

Lava, as a grayish, moving mass of thick, crackling, crumbling rock, crept forth from openings near the growing cone. As flakes of rock fell away from the "front," glowing red showed forth in the awesome flow. Slowly but inexorably this grayish diabolical river of molten rock moved down slope. It spread and enveloped fields, trees, and all but a little of the village of San Juan de Parangaricutiro. Only the tower of the village church still stands above the jagged mass of lava beneath which the village lies. Later on, the tide of lava swallowed up the village of Paricutín.

Such were some of the accounts of what happened, as told to us by villagers of the volcanic area, and two officials of the Mexico Soil Conservation Service. We were there at the invitation of Dr. Richard E. Fuller, chairman of the National Research Council Committee, to collaborate with the Comisión Impulsora y Coordinadora de la Investigación Cientifica de

México in the study of Paricutín. Sr. Ing. Patiño, director of the Departamento de Conservación de Suelos, collaborated with us in the study and assigned Ing. José Navarro y Sámano and Ing. David Llerena Lanzagorta to carry on field work with us. The laboratories of the Departamento de Conservación de Suelos made analyses of samples of ash and determinations of laden flood waters. This report covers only the more general aspects of the spectacular examples of erosion that we found had taken place, and were taking place during our study of the area about the volcano, as well as the effects of ash-laden floods on irrigation works in the Los Reyes Valley.

From the beginning of the eruption and during our field work out from the Caseta, volcanic ash fell on the countryside as heavy black snow that would not melt. It

overturned trees, bent others to the ground, and broke brittle branches. Forests nearby were heavily damaged. Grass was smothered, depriving livestock and game of forage. Fields that make up about 30 percent of the land area, and lie chiefly in valley floors, were covered to depths that stopped the growing of the usual crop of corn. The livelihoods of villagers immediately about the volcano were endangered. They fled Paricutín and San Juan de Parangaricutiro because of lava flows and were resettled by the government elsewhere. But villagers of Angahuan and Zirosto refused to leave their homes. They resorted to other occupations for wages to buy their food. A great influx of tourists gave employment to inhabitants of Angahuan, whereas those of Zirosto were employed on repairing roads and in the hewing and delivery of railroad ties out of