The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire was, up to its time, the greatest disaster to ever befall a city in the United States. What is truly amazing is the speed in which municipal officials, the United States Army and the federal government acted to restore order. Within days there was sufficient food and shelter on hand to provide for the 300,000 people that had lost their homes.
As I read through Charles Morris' manuscript, I was struck by how much more humane and efficient disaster relief was following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake than it was following the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Katrina upon New Orleans in September 2005. Although the funds made available to FEMA were much greater in 2005, they were administered in a less efficient manner. As you read through these pages, I invite you to note the superior caliber of the elected officials who acted swiftly to bring aid and comfort to their fellow citizens in their time of need. Truly, there is something to be learned from this story.
PREFACE
Earthquake and famine, fire and sudden death—these are
the destroyers that men fear when they come singly; but upon the unhappy
people of California they came together, a hideous quartette, to slay human
beings, to blot from existence the wealth that represented prolonged and
strenuous effort, to bring hunger and speechless misery to three hundred
thousand homeless and terror-stricken people.
The full measure of the catastrophe can probably never be taken. The
summary cannot be made amid the panic, the confusion, the removal of ancient
landmarks, the complete subversion of the ordinary machinery of
society. When chaos comes, as it did in San Francisco, and all the
channels of familiar life are closed, and human anguish grows to be
intolerable, compilation of statistics is impossible, even if it were not
repugnant to the feelings. And when order is once more restored, after
the lapse of many weeks, months and perhaps years, the details of the
calamity have merged into one undecipherable mass of misery which defies the
analyst and the historian. It is the purpose of this book faithfully to
record the story of these awful days when years were lived in a moment
and to preserve an accurate chronicle of them, not only for the
people whose hearts yearn in sympathy today, but for their posterity.
Other frightful catastrophes the world has known. The
earthquake which dropped Lisbon into the sea in 1755, and in a
moment swallowed up twenty-five thousand people, was perhaps more
awful than the convulsion which has brought woe to San Francisco.
When Krakatoa Mountain, in the Straits of Sunda, in 1883, split
asunder and poured across the land a mighty wave, in which
thirty-six thousand human beings perished, the results also were
more terrible.
The whirlwind of fire which consumed St. Pierre, in the Island
of Martinique, and the devastation wrought by Vesuvius a few days previous
to that at San Francisco, need not be used for comparison with the latter
tragedy, but they may be referred to, that we may recall the fact that this
land of ours is not the only one which has suffered.
But since the western hemisphere was discovered there has been in this
quarter of the globe no violence of natural forces at all comparable in
destructive fury with that which was manifested upon the Pacific coast.
The only other calamity at all equalling it, or surpassing it, was the Civil
War, and that was the work of the evil passions of man inciting him to slay
his brother, while Nature would have had him live in peace.
The earthquake in San Francisco, which crumbled strong buildings as if
they were made of paper, would have been terrible enough; but afterward came
the horror of fire and of imprisoned men and women burned alive, and now to
it was added the suffering of multitudes from hunger and exposure.
Public attention is fixed on the great city; but smaller cities
had their days and nights of destruction, horror and misery. Some
were almost destroyed. Others were partly ruined, and beyond
their borders, over a wide area, the trembling of the earth
toppled houses, annihilated property and transformed riches into
poverty. The cost in life can be reckoned. The money loss will never
be computed, for the appraised value of the wrecked property conveys no
notion of the consequences of the almost complete paralysis, for a time, of
the commercial operations by means of which men and women earn their
bread.
When the weakness and the folly and the sin of men bring woe upon other
men, there are plenty of texts for the preacher and no scarcity of earnest
preachers. But here is a vast and awful catastrophe that befell from an
act of Nature apparently no more extraordinary than the shrinkage of hot
metal in the process of cooling. The consequences are terrifying in
this case because they involve the habitations of half a million people; but,
no doubt, the process goes on somewhere within the earth almost
continuously, and it no more involves the theory of malignant Nature than
that of an angry God.
If we contemplate it, possibly we may be helped to a profitable estimate
of our own relative insignificance. We think, with some notion of our
importance, of the thousand million men who live upon the earth; but they are
a mere handful of animate atoms in comparison with the surface, to say
nothing of the solid contents, of the globe itself.
We are fond of boasting in this latter day of man's marvelous success in
subduing the forces of Nature; and, while we are in the midst of exultation
over our victories, Nature tumbles the rocks about somewhere within the
bowels of the earth, and we have to learn the old lesson that our triumphs
have not penetrated farther than to the very outermost rim of the realms of
Nature.
A few weak, almost helpless, creatures, we millions of men stand upon
the deck of a great ship, which goes rolling through space that is itself
incomprehensible, and usually we are so busy with our paltry ambitions, our
transgressions, our righteous labors, our prides and hopes and entanglements
that we forget where we are and what is our destiny. A direct
interposition from a Superior Power, even if it be hurtful to the body, might
be required to persuade us to stop and consider and take anew our bearings,
so that we may comprehend in some larger degree our precise relations to
things. The wisest men have been the most ready to recognize
the beneficence of the discipline of affliction. If there were
no sorrow, we should be likely to find the school of
life unprofitable.
For one thing, the school wherein sorrow is a part of the discipline is
that in which is developed human sympathy, one of the finest and most
ennobling manifestations of the Love which is, in its essence, divine.
In human life there is much that is ignoble, and the race has almost
contemptible weakness and insignificance in comparison with the physical
forces of the universe.
But man is superior to all these forces in his possession of the power
of affection; and in almost the lowest and basest of the race this power, if
latent and half lost, may be found and evoked by the spectacle of the
suffering of a fellow-creature.
The human family looks on with pity while the homeless and hungry and
impoverished Californians endure pangs. Wherever the news went, by the
swift processes of electricity, there men and women, some of them, perhaps,
hardly knowing where California is, were sorry and willing and eager to
help. There are quarrels within the family sometimes, when nation wars
with nation, and all love seems to have vanished; but the world is, in truth,
akin. "God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth," and
the blood "tells" when suffering comes.
THE PUBLISHERS.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE
THE DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY
FIGHTING FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE
THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION
THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST
FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF
THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH
WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES
DISASTER SPREADS OVER THE GOLDEN STATE
ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE
THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST
LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC
PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO
THE EARTHQUAKE WAVE FELT AROUND THE WORLD
VESUVIUS DEVASTATES THE REGION OF NAPLES
THE GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES
THE CHARLESTON AND OTHER EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES
THE VOLCANO AND THE EARTHQUAKE, EARTH'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTION
THE THEORIES OF VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION
THE ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI
SKAPTER JOKULL AND HECLA, THE GREAT ICELANDIC VOLCANOES
VOLCANOES OF THE PHILIPPINES AND OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDS
THE WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS AND KILAUEA'S LAKE OF FIRE
POPOCATEPETL AND OTHER VOLCANOES OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
THE TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH IN 1902
ST. VINCENT ISLAND AND MONT SOUFRIERE IN 1812
SUBMARINE VOLCANOES AND THEIR WORK OF ISLAND-BUILDING
MUD VOLCANOES, GEYSERS AND HOT SPRINGS
THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY BY EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE
San Francisco and Its Terrific Earthquake.
On the splendid Bay of San Francisco, one of the noblest harbors
on the whole vast range of the Pacific Ocean, long has stood, like a Queen
of the West on its seven hills, the beautiful city of San Francisco, the
youngest and in its own way one of the most beautiful and attractive of the
large cities of the United States. Born less than sixty years ago, it has
grown with the healthy rapidity of a young giant, outvieing many cities of
much earlier origin, until it has won rank as the eighth city of the
United States, and as the unquestioned metropolis of our far
Western States.
It is on this great and rich city that the dark demon of destruction has
now descended, as it fell on the next younger of our cities, Chicago, in
1872. It was the rage of the fire-fiend that desolated the metropolis
of the lakes. Upon the Queen City of the West the twin terrors of
earthquake and conflagration have descended at once, careening through its
thronged streets, its marts of trade, and its abodes alike of poverty and
wealth, and with the red hand of devastation sweeping one of the
noblest centres of human industry and enterprise from the face of
the earth. It is this story of almost irremediable ruin which it
is our unwelcome duty to chronicle. But before entering upon
this sorrowful task some description of the city that has fallen a prey to
two of the earth's chief agents of destruction must be given.
San Francisco is built on the end of a peninsula or tongue of land lying
between the Pacific Ocean and the broad San Francisco Bay, a noble body of
inland water extending southward for about forty miles and with a width
varying from six to twelve miles. Northward this splendid body of water
is connected with San Pablo Bay, ten miles long, and the latter with Suisun
Bay, eight miles long, the whole forming a grand range of navigable waters
only surpassed by the great northern inlet of Puget Sound. The Golden
Gate, a channel five miles long, connects this great harbor with the
sea, the whole giving San Francisco the greatest commercial advantages to
be found on the Pacific coast.
THE EARLY DAYS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The original site of the city was a grant made by the King of
Spain of four square leagues of land. Congress afterwards confirmed
this grant. It was an uninviting region, with its two lofty hills
and its various lower ones, a barren expanse of shifting sand
dunes extending from their feet. The population in 1830 was about
200 souls, about equal to that of Chicago at the same date. It was
not much larger in 1848, when California fell into American hands and the
discovery of gold set in train the famous rush of treasure seekers to that
far land. When 1849 dawned the town contained about 2,000 people.
They had increased to 20,000 before the year ended. The place, with its
steep and barren hills and its sandy stretches, was not inviting, but its
ease of access to the sea and its sheltered harbor were important features,
and people settled there, making it a depot of mining supplies and a point
of departure for the mines.
The place grew rapidly and has continued to grow. At first a
city of flimsy frame buildings, it became early a prey to the flames, fire
sweeping through it three times in 1850 and taking toll of the young city to
the value of $7,500,000. These conflagrations swept away most of the
wooden houses, and business men began to build more substantially of brick,
stone and iron. Yet today, for climatic reasons, most of the
residences continue to be built of wood. But the slow-burning redwood
of the California hillsides is used instead of the inflammable pine, the
result being that since 1850 the loss by fire in the residence section of the
city has been remarkably small. In 1900 the city contained 50,494 frame
and only 3,881 stone and brick buildings, though the tendency to use
more durable materials was then growing rapidly.
Before describing the terrible calamity which fell upon this beautiful
city on that dread morning of April 18, 1906, some account of the character
of the place is very desirable, that readers may know what San Francisco was
before the rage of earthquake and fire reduced it to what it is today.
THE CHARACTER OF THE CITY.
The site of the city of San Francisco is very uneven, embracing
a series of hills, of which the highest ones, known as the Twin Peaks,
reach to an elevation of 925 feet, and form the crown of an amphitheatre of
lower altitudes. Several of the latter are covered with handsome
residences, and afford a magnificent view of the surrounding country, with
its bordering bay and ocean, and the noble Golden Gate channel, a river-like
passage from ocean to bay of five miles in length and one in width.
This waterway is very deep except on the bar at its mouth, where the depth of
water is thirty feet.
Since its early days the growth of the city has been very rapid. In 1900
it held 342,782 people, and the census estimate made from figures of the city
directory in 1904 gave it then a population of 485,000, probably a
considerable exaggeration. In it are mingled inhabitants from most of
the nations of the earth, and it may claim the unenviable honor of possessing
the largest population of Chinese outside of China itself, the colony
numbering over 20,000.
Of the pioneer San Francisco few traces remain, the old buildings having
nearly all disappeared. Large and costly business houses and splendid
residences have taken their place in the central portion of the city, marble,
granite, terra-cotta, iron and steel being largely used as building
material. The great prevalence of frame buildings in the residence
sections is largely due to the popular belief that they are safer in a
locality subject to earthquakes, while the frequent occurrence of earth
tremors long restrained the inclination to erect lofty buildings. Not
until 1890 was a high structure built, and few skyscrapers had invaded the
city up to its day of ruin. They will probably be introduced more
frequently in the future, recent experience having demonstrated that they are
in considerable measure earthquake proof.
The city before the fire contained numerous handsome
structures, including the famous old Palace Hotel, built at a cost
of $3,000,000 and with accommodations for 1,200 guests; the
nearly finished and splendid Fairmount Hotel; the City Hall, with
its lofty dome, on which $7,000,000 is said to have been spent, much
of it, doubtless, political plunder; a costly United States Mint and Post
Office, an Academy of Science, and many churches, colleges, libraries and
other public edifices. The city had 220 miles of paved streets, 180
miles of electric and 77 of cable railway, 62 hotels, 16 theatres, 4 large
libraries, 5 daily newspapers, etc., together with 28 public parks.
Sitting, like Rome of old, on its seven hills, San Francisco has long
been noted for its beautiful site, clasped in, as it is, between the Pacific
Ocean and its own splendid bay, on a peninsula of some five miles in
width. Where this juts into the bay at its northernmost point rises a
great promontory known as Telegraph Hill, from whose height homeless
thousands have recently gazed on the smoke rising from their ruined
homes. In the early days of golden promise a watchman was stationed on
this hill to look out for coming ships entering the Golden Gate from their
long voyage around the Horn and signal the welcome news to the town
below. From this came its name.
Cliffs rise on either side of the Golden Gate, and on one is perched the
Cliff House, long a famous hostelry. This stands so low that in storms
the surf is flung over its lower porticos, though its force is broken by the
Seal Rocks. A chief attraction to this house was to see the seals play
on these rocks, their favorite place of resort. The Cliff House was at
first said to have been swept bodily by the earthquake into the sea, but
it proved to be very little injured, and stands erect in its
old picturesque location.
In the vicinity of Telegraph Hill are Russian and Nob Hills, the latter
getting its peculiar title from the fact that the wealthy "nobs," or mining
magnates, of bonanza days built their homes on its summit level.
Farther to the east are Mount Olympus and Strawberry Hill, and beyond these
the Twin Peaks, which really embrace three hills, the third being named
Bernal Heights. Farther to the south and east is Rincan Hill, the last
in the half moon crescent of hills, within which is a spread of flat
ground extending to the bay. Behind the hills on the Pacific
side stretches a vast sweep of sand, at some places level, but
often gathered into great round dunes. Part of this has been
transformed into the beautiful Golden Gate Park, a splendid expanse of
green verdure which has long been one of San Francisco's
chief attractions.
Beneath the whole of San Francisco is a rock formation, but everywhere
on top of this extends the sand, the gift of the winds. This is of such a
character that a hole dug in the street anywhere, even if only to the depth
of a few feet, must be shored up with planking or it will fill as fast as it
is excavated, the sand running as dry as the contents of an hour glass.
When there is an earthquake—or a "temblor," to use the Spanish name—it is
the rock foundation that is disturbed, not the sand, which, indeed,
serves to lessen the effect of the earth tremor.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CITY.
Leaving the region of the hills and descending from their
crescent-shaped expanse, we find a broad extent of low ground,
sloping gently toward the bay. On this low-lying flat was built all of
San Francisco's business houses, all its principal hotels and a large part
of its tenements and poorer dwellings. It was here that the earthquake
was felt most severely and that the fire started which laid waste the
city.
Rarely has a city been built on such doubtful foundations.
The greater part of the low ground was a bay in 1849, but it has
since been filled in by the drifting sands blown from the ocean side
by the prevailing west winds and by earth dumped into it. Much
of this land was "made ground." Forty-niners still alive say
that when they first saw San Francisco the waters of the bay came up
to Montgomery Street. The Palace Hotel was in Montgomery Street,
and from there to the ferry docks—a long walk for any man—the water had
been driven back by a "filling-in" process.
This is the district that especially suffered, that south of Market and
east of Montgomery Streets. Nearly all the large buildings in this
section are either built on piles driven into the sand and mud or were raised
upon wooden foundations. It is on such ground as this that the costly
Post Office building was erected, despite the protests of nearly the entire
community, who asserted that the ground was nothing but a filled-in
bog.
In none of the earthquakes that San Francisco has had was any serious
damage except to houses in this filled-in territory, and to houses built
along the line of some of the many streams which ran from the hills down to
the bay, and which were filled in as the town grew—for instance, the Grand
Opera House was built over the bed of St. Anne's Creek. A bog, slough
and marsh, known as the Pipeville Slough, was the ground on which the City
Hall was built, and which was originally a burying ground. Sand from
the western shore had blown over and drifted into the marsh and hardened
its surface.
When the final grading scheme of the city was adopted in 1853, and work
went on, the water front of the city was where Clay Street now is, between
Montgomery and Sansome Streets. The present level area of San Francisco
of about three thousand acres is an average of nine feet above or below the
natural surface of the ground and the changes made necessitated the transfer
of 21,000,000 cubic yards from hills to hollows. Houses to the number
of thousands were raised or lowered, street floors became subcellars or third
stories and the whole natural face of the ground was altered.
Through this infirm material all the pipes of the water and sewer system
of San Francisco in its business districts and in most of the region south of
Market street were laid. When the earthquake came, the filled-in ground
shook like the jelly it is. The only firm and rigid material in its
millions of cubic yards of surface area and depth were the iron pipes.
Naturally they broke, as they would not bend, and San Francisco's water
system was therefore instantly disabled, with the result that the fire became
complete master of the situation and raged uncontrolled for three days
and nights.
Although the earthquake wrecked the business and residential portions of
the city alike, on the hills the land did not sink. All "made ground" sank in
consequence of the quaking, but on the high ground the upper parts of the
buildings were about the only portions of the structures wrecked. Most
of the damage on the hills was done by falling chimneys. On Montgomery
Street, half a block from the main office of the Western Union Company, the
middle of the street was cracked and blown up, but during the shocks
which struck the Western Union building only the top stories
were cracked. Similar phenomena were experienced in other
localities, and the bulk of the disaster, so far as the earthquake
was concerned, was confined to the low-lying region above described.
THE BANE OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
From the origin of San Francisco the earthquake has been its
bane. During the past fifty years fully 250 shocks have been
recorded, while all California has been subject to them. But
frequency rather than violence of shocks has been the characteristic of
the seismic history of the State, there having been few shocks that caused
serious damage, and none since 1872 that led to loss of life.
There was a violent shock in 1856, when the city was only a mining town
of small frame buildings. Several shanties were overthrown and a few
persons killed by falling walls and chimneys. There was a severe shock
also in 1865, in which many buildings were shattered. Next in violence
was the shock of 1872, which cracked the walls of some of the public
buildings and caused a panic. There was no great loss of life. In
April, 1898, just before midnight, there was a lively shakeup which caused
the tall buildings to shake like the snapping of a whip and drove
the tourists out of the hotels into the streets in their
nightclothes. Three or four old houses fell, and the Benicia Navy Yard, which
is on made ground across the bay, was damaged to the extent of
about $100,000. The last severe shock was in January, 1900, when the
St. Nicholas Hotel was badly damaged.
These were the heaviest shocks. On the other hand, light
shocks, as above said, have been frequent. Probably the sensible
quakes have averaged three or four a year. These are usually
tremblings lasting from ten seconds to a minute and just heavy enough to
wake light sleepers or to shake dishes about on the shelves.
Tourists and newcomers are generally alarmed by these phenomena, but
old Californians have learned to take them philosophically. To one who
is not afraid of them, the sensation of one of these little tremblers is
rather pleasant than otherwise, and the inhabitants grew so accustomed to
them as rarely to let them disturb their equanimity.
After 1900 the forces beneath the earth seemed to fall asleep.
As it proved, they were only biding their time. The era was at
hand when they were to declare themselves in all their mighty power
and fall upon the devoted city with ruin in their grasp. But all
this lay hidden in the secret casket of time, and the city kept up to its
record as one of the liveliest and in many respects the most reckless and
pleasure-loving on the continent, its people squandering their money with
thoughtless improvidence and enjoying to the full all the good that life held
out to them.
On the 17th of April, 1906, the city was, as usual, gay, careless, busy,
its people attending to business or pleasure with their ordinary vim as
inclination led them, and not a soul dreaming of the horrors that lay in
wait. They were as heedless of coming peril and death as the
inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah before the rain of fire from heaven
descended upon their devoted heads. This is not to say that they were
doomed by God to destruction like these "cities of the plains." We
should more wisely say that the forces of ruin within the earth take no heed
of persons or places. They come and go as the conditions of nature demand,
and if man has built one of his cities across their destined track, its doom
comes from its situation, not from the moral state of its inhabitants.
THE GREAT DISASTER OF 1906.
That night the people went, with their wonted equanimity, to
their beds, rich and poor, sick and well alike. Did any of them dream
of disaster in the air? It may be so, for often, as the poet
tells us, "Coming events cast their shadows before." But, forewarned
by dreams or not, doubtless not a soul in the great city was prepared for
the terrible event so near at hand, when, at thirteen minutes past five
o'clock on the dread morning of the 18th, they felt their beds lifted beneath
them as if by a Titan hand, heard the crash of falling walls and ceilings,
and saw everything in their rooms tossed madly about, while through their
windows came the roar of an awful disaster from the city without.
It was a matter not of minutes, but of seconds, yet on all that coast,
long the prey of the earthquake, no shock like it had ever been felt, no such
sudden terror awakened, no such terrible loss occasioned as in those few
fearful seconds. Again and again the trembling of the earth passed by,
three quickly repeated shocks, and the work of the demon of ruin was
done. People woke with a start to find themselves flung from their beds
to the floor, many of them covered with the fragments of broken ceilings,
many lost among the ruins of falling floors and walls, many pinned
in agonizing suffering under the ruins of their houses, which had
been utterly wrecked in those fatal seconds. Many there were,
indeed, who had been flung to quick if not to instant death under
their ruined homes.
Those seconds of the reign of the elemental forces had turned
the gayest, most careless city on the continent into a wreck which
no words can fitly describe. Those able to move stumbled in
wild panic across the floors of their heaving houses, regardless
of clothing, of treasures, of everything but the mad instinct for safety,
and rushed headlong into the streets, to find that the earth itself had
yielded to the energy of its frightful interior forces and had in places been
torn and rent like the houses themselves. New terrors assailed the
fugitives as fresh tremors shook the solid ground, some of them strong enough
to bring down shattered walls and chimneys, and bring back much of the mad
terror of the first fearful quake. The heaviest of these came at
eight o'clock. While less forcible than that which had caused the
work of destruction, it added immensely to the panic and dread of
the people and put many of the wanderers to flight, some toward the ferry,
the great mass in the direction of the sand dunes and Golden Gate Park.
The spectacle of the entire population of a great city thus
roused suddenly from slumber by a fierce earthquake shock and sent
flying into the streets in utter panic, where not buried under
falling walls or tumbling debris, is one that can scarcely be pictured
in words, and can be given in any approach to exact realization only in
the narratives of those who passed through its horrors and experienced the
sensations to which it gave rise. Some of the more vivid of these
personal accounts will be presented later, but at present we must confine
ourselves to a general statement of the succession of events.
The earthquake proved but the beginning and much the least destructive
part of the disaster. In many of the buildings there were fires, banked
for the night, but ready to kindle the inflammable material hurled down upon
them by the shock. In others were live electric wires which the shock
brought in contact with woodwork. The terror-stricken fugitives saw,
here and there, in all directions around them, the alarming vision of red
flames curling upward and outward, in gleaming contrast to the white
light of dawn just showing in the eastern sky. Those lurid
gleams climbed upward in devouring haste, and before the sun had
fairly risen a dozen or more conflagrations were visible in all
sections of the business part of the city, and in places great
buildings broke with startling suddenness into flame, which shot hotly
high into the air.
While the mass of the people were stunned by the awful suddenness of the
disaster and stood rooted to the ground or wandered helplessly about in blank
dismay, there were many alert and self- possessed among them who roused
themselves quickly from their dismay and put their energies to useful
work. Some of these gave themselves to the work of rescue, seeking to
save the injured from their perilous situation and draw the bodies of the
dead from the ruins under which they lay. Those base wretches to whom
plunder is always the first thought were as quickly engaged in seeking
for spoil in edifices laid open to their plundering hands by the
shock. Meanwhile the glare of the flames brought the fire-fighters out
in hot haste with their engines, and up from the military station at the
Presidio, on the Golden Gate side of the city, came at double quick a force
of soldiers, under the efficient command of General Funston, of Cuban and
Philippine fame. These trained troops were at once put on guard over
the city, with directions to keep the best order possible, and with strict
command to shoot all looters at sight. Funston recognized at the start
the necessity of keeping the lawless element under control in such an
exigency as that which he had to face. Later in the day the First
Regiment of California National Guards was called out and put on duty, with
similar orders.
RESCUERS AND FIRE-FIGHTERS.
The work of fighting the fire was the first and greatest duty to
be performed, but from the start it proved a very difficult, almost
a hopeless, task. With fierce fires burning at once in a dozen
or more separate places, the fire department of the city would have been
inadequate to cope with the demon of flame even under the best of
circumstances. As it was, they found themselves handicapped at the
start by a nearly total lack of water. The earthquake had disarranged
and broken the water mains and there was scarcely a drop of water to be had,
so that the engines proved next to useless. Water might be drawn from
the bay, but the centre of the conflagration was a mile or more away, and
this great body of water was rendered useless in the stringent
exigency.
The only hope that remained to the authorities was to endeavor to check
the progress of the flames by the use of dynamite, blowing up buildings in
the line of progress of the conflagration. This was put in practice
without loss of time, and soon the thunder-like roar of the explosions began,
blasts being heard every few minutes, each signifying that some building had
been blown to atoms. But over the gaps thus made the flames leaped, and
though the brave fellows worked with a desperation and energy of the most
heroic type, it seemed as if all their labors were to be without
avail, the terrible fire marching on as steadily as if a colony of
ants had sought to stay its devastating progress.
THE HORROR OF THE PEOPLE.
It was with grief and horror that the mass of the people gazed
on this steady march of the army of ruin. They were seemingly
half dazed by the magnitude of the disaster, strangely passive in the face
of the ruin that surrounded them, as if stunned by despair and not yet
awakened to a realization of the horrors of the situation. Among these was
the possibility of famine. No city at any time carries more than a few
days' supply of provisions, and with the wholesale districts and warehouse
regions invaded by the flames the shortage of food made itself apparent from
the start. Water was even more difficult to obtain, the supply being
nearly all cut off. Those who possessed supplies of food and liquids of any
kind in many cases took advantage of the opportunity to advance
their prices. Thus an Associated Press man was obliged to pay
twenty-five cents for a small glass of mineral water, the only kind
of drink that at first was to be had, while food went up at the same rate,
bakers frequently charging as much as a dollar for a loaf. As for the
expressmen and cabmen, their charges were often practically prohibitory, as
much as fifty dollars being asked for the conveyance of a passenger to the
ferry. Policemen were early stationed at some of the retail shops,
regulating the sale and the price of food, and permitting only a small
portion to be sold to each purchaser, so as to prevent a few persons from
exhausting the supply.
The fire, the swaying and tottering walls, the frequent
dynamite explosions, each followed by a crashing shower of stones
and bricks, rendered the streets very unsafe for pedestrians, and all day
long the flight of residents from the city went on, growing quickly to the
dimensions of a panic. The ferryboats were crowded with those who
wished to leave the city, and a constant stream of the homeless, carrying
such articles as they had rescued from their homes, was kept up all day long,
seeking the sand dunes, the parks and every place uninvaded by the
flames. Before night Golden Gate Park and the unbuilt districts
adjoining on the ocean side presented the appearance of a tented city,
shelter of many kinds being improvised from bedding and blankets, and the
people settling into such sparse comfort as these inadequate means
provided.
A strange feature of the disaster was a rush to the banks by people who
wished to get their money and flee from the seemingly doomed city. The
fire front was yet distant from these institutions, which were destined to
fall a prey to the flames, and all that morning lines of dishevelled and
half-frantic men stood before the banks on Montgomery and Sansome Streets,
braving in their thirst for money the smoke and falling embers and beating in
wild anxiety upon the doors. Their effort was vain; the doors remained
closed; finally the police drove these people away, and the banks went
on with the work of saving their valuables. As for the people
who wildly fled toward the ferries, in spite of the fact that ten blocks
of fire, as the day went on, stopped all egress in that direction, it became
necessary for them to be driven back by the police and the troops, and they
were finally forced to seek safety in the sands. And thus, with
incident manifold, went on that fatal Wednesday, the first day of the dread
disaster.
OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
It is important here to give the official record of the
earthquake shocks, as given by the scientists. Professor George
Davidson, of the University of California, says of them:
"The earthquake came from north to south, and the only description I am
able to give of its effect is that it seemed like a terrier shaking a
rat. I was in bed, but was awakened by the first shock. I began to
count the seconds as I went towards the table where my watch was, being able
through much practice closely to approximate the time in that manner.
The shock came at 5.12 o'clock. The first sixty seconds were the most
severe. From that time on it decreased gradually for about thirty
seconds. There was then the slightest perceptible lull. Then the
shock continued for sixty seconds longer, being slighter in degree in this
minute than in any part of the preceding minute and a half. There were
two slight shocks afterwards which I did not time. At 8.14 o'clock I
recorded a shock of five seconds' duration, and one at 4.15 of two
seconds. There were slight shocks which I did not record at 5.17 and
at 5.27. At 6.50 P. M. there was a sharp shock of several
seconds."
Professor A. O. Louschner, of the students' observatory of
the University of California, thus records his observations:
"The principal part of the earthquake came in two sections, the first
series of vibrations lasting about forty seconds. The vibrations
diminished gradually during the following ten seconds, and then occurred with
renewed vigor for about twenty-five seconds more. But even at noon the
disturbance had not subsided, as slight shocks are recorded at frequent
intervals on the seismograph. The motion was from south-southeast to
north-northwest.
"The remarkable feature of this earthquake, aside from its intensity,
was its rotary motion. As seen from the print, the sum total of all
displacements represents a very regular ellipse, and some of the lines
representing the earth's motion can be traced along the whole
circumference. The result of observation indicates that our heaviest
shocks are in the direction south-southeast to north-northwest. In that
respect the records of the three heaviest earthquakes agree entirely.
But they have several other features in common. One of these is that
while the displacements are very large the vibration period is comparatively
slow, amounting to about one second in the last two big earthquakes."
If we seek to discover the actual damage done by the earthquake, the
fact stands out that the fire followed so close upon it that the traces of
its ravages were in many cases obliterated. So many buildings in the
territory of the severest shock fell a prey to the flames or to dynamite that
the actual work of the earth forces was made difficult and in many places
impossible to discover. This fact is likely to lead to considerable
dispute and delay when the question of insurance adjustment comes up, many of
the insurance companies confining their risk to fire damage and
claiming exemption from liability in the case of damage due to
earthquake.
Among the chief victims of the earth-shake was the costly and showy City
Hall, with its picturesque dome standing loftily above the structure.
This dome was left still erect, but only as a skeleton might stand, with its
flesh gone and its bare ribs exposed to the searching air. Its roof,
its smaller towers came tumbling down in frightful disarray, and the once
proud edifice is today a miserable wreck, fire having aided earthquake in
its ruin. The new Post Office, a handsome government building, also
suffered severely from the shock, its walls being badly cracked and injury
done by earthquake and fire that it is estimated will need half a
million dollars to repair.
FREAKS OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
One observer states that the earthquake appeared to be
very irregular in its course. He tells us that "there are
gas reservoirs with frames all twisted and big factories thrown to
the ground, while a few yards away are miserable shanties with not a board
out of place. Wooden, steel and brick structures hardly felt the
earthquake in some parts of the city, while in other places all were
wrecked.
"Skirting the shore northwest from the big ferry building—which was so
seriously injured that it will have to be rebuilt—the first thing observed
was the extraordinary irregularity of the earthquake's course. Pier No.
5, for instance, is nothing but a mass of ruins, while Pier No. 3, on one
side of it and Pier No. 7, on the other side, similar in size and
construction, are undamaged. Farther on, the Kosmos Line pier is a complete
wreck."
The big forts at the entrance to the Golden Gate also suffered seriously
from the great shake-up, and the emplacements of the big guns were cracked
and damaged. The same is the case with the fortifications back of Old
Fort Point, the great guns in these being for the present rendered
useless. It will take much time and labor to restore their delicate
adjustment upon their carriages.
The buildings that collapsed in the city were all flimsy
wooden buildings and old brick structures, the steel frame buildings,
even the score or more in course of construction, escaping injury from the
earthquake shock. Of the former, one of the most complete wrecks was
the Valencia Hotel, a four-story wooden building, which collapsed into a heap
of ruins, pinning many persons under its splintered timbers.
SKYSCRAPERS EARTHQUAKE PROOF.
In fact, as the reports of damage wrought by the earthquake came in,
the conviction grew that one of the safest places during the earthquake shock
was on one of the upper floors of the skyscraper office buildings or
hotels. As a matter of fact, not a single person, so far as can be
learned, lost his or her life or was seriously injured in any of the tall,
steel frame structures in the city, although they rocked during the quake
like a ship in a gale.
The loss of life was caused in almost every case by the collapse
of frame structures, which the native San Franciscan believed was
the safest of all in an earthquake, or by the shaking down of portions of
brick or stone buildings which did not possess an iron framework. The
manner in which the tall steel structures withstood the shock is a complete
vindication of the strongest claims yet made for them, and it is made doubly
interesting from the fact that this is the first occasion on which the effect
of an earthquake of any proportions on a tall steel structure could be
studied.
The St. Francis Hotel, a sixteen-story structure, can be repaired at an
expenditure of about $400,000, its damage being almost wholly by fire.
The steel shell and the floors are intact. Although the building rocked
like a ship in a gale while the quake lasted, its foundations are
undamaged. Other steel buildings which are so little damaged as to
admit of repairs more or less extensive are the James Flood, the Union Trust,
the CALL building, the Mutual Savings Bank, the Crocker-Woolworth building
and the Postal building. All of these are modern buildings of steel
construction, from sixteen to twenty stories.
A peculiar feature of the effect of the earthquake on structures of this
kind is reported in the case of the Fairmount Hotel, a fourteen-story
structure. The first two stories of the Fairmount are found to be so
seriously damaged that they will have to be rebuilt, while the other twelve
stories are uninjured.
Various explanations are being made of the surprising resistance shown
by the skyscrapers. The great strength and binding power of the steel
frame, combined with a deep-seated foundation and great lightness as compared
with buildings of stone, are the main reasons given. The iron, it is
said, unlike stone, responded to the vibratory force and passed it along to
be expended in other directions, while brick or stone offered a solid and
impenetrable front, with the result that the seismic force tended to
expend itself by shaking the building to pieces.
Whether there is any scientific basis for the latter theory or not, it
seems reasonable enough, in view of the descriptions given us of the manner
in which the steel buildings received the shock. All things considered,
the modern steel building has afforded in the San Francisco earthquake the
most convincing evidence of its strength.
From Golden Gate Park came news of the total destruction of the large
building covering a portion of the children's playground. The walls were
shattered beyond repair, the roof fell in, and the destruction was
complete. The pillars of the new stone gates at the park entrance were
twisted and torn from their foundations, some of them, weighing nearly four
tons, being shifted as though they were made of cork. It is a little
singular that the monuments and statues in the city escaped without damage
except in the case of the imposing Dewey Monument, in Union Square Park,
which suffered what appears to be a minor injury.
In this connection an incident of extraordinary character
is narrated. Among the statues on the buildings of the
Leland Stanford, Jr., University, all of which were overthrown, was
a marble statue of Carrara in a niche on the building devoted to zoology
and physiology. This in falling broke through a hard cement pavement
and buried itself in the ground below, from which it was dug. The
singular fact is that when recovered it proved to be without a crack or
scratch. This university seemed to be a central point in the
disturbance, the destruction of its buildings being almost total, though they
had been built with the especial design of resisting earthquake shocks.
Such was the general character of the earthquake at San Francisco and in
its vicinity. It may be said farther that all, or very nearly all, the
deaths and injuries were due to it directly or indirectly, even those who
perished by fire owing their deaths to the fact of their being pinned in
buildings ruined by the earthquake shock, while others were killed by falling
walls weakened by the same cause.
On the night of April 23d the earth tremor returned with a slight shock,
only sufficient to cause a temporary alarm. On the afternoon of the
25th came another and severer one, strong enough to shake down some tottering
walls and add another to the list of victims. This was a woman named
Annie Whitaker, who was at work in the kitchen of her home at the time.
The chimney, which had been weakened by the great shock, now fell, crashing
through the roof and fracturing her skull. Thus the earth powers
claimed a final human sacrifice before their dread visitation ended.
The Demon of Fire Invades the Stricken City.
The terrors of the earthquake are momentary. One fierce,
levelling shock and usually all is over. The torment within the earth
has passed on and the awakened forces of the earth's crust sink into rest
again, after having shaken the surface for many leagues. Rarely does the
dread agent of ruin leave behind it such a terrible follower to complete its
work as was the case in the doomed city of San Francisco. All seemed to
lead towards such a carnival of ruin as the earth has rarely seen. The
demon of fire followed close upon the heels of the unseen fiend of the
earth's hidden caverns, and ran red-handed through the metropolis of the
West, kindling a thousand unhurt buildings, while the horror-stricken people
stood aghast in terror, as helpless to combat this new enemy as they
were to check the ravages of the earthquake itself.
Why not quench the fire at its start with water? Alas! there
was no water, and this expedient was a hopeless one. The iron
mains which carried the precious fluid under the city streets were
broken or injured so that no quenching streams were to be had. In
some cases the engine houses had been so damaged that the
fire-fighting apparatus could not be taken out, though even if it had it
would have been useless. A sweeping conflagration and not an ounce
of water to throw upon it! The situation of the people was
a maddening one. They were forced helplessly and hopelessly to
gaze upon the destruction of their all, and it is no marvel if many
of them grew frantic and lost their reason at the sight.
Thousands gathered and looked on in blank and pitiful misery, their
strong hands, their iron wills of no avail, while the red-lipped
fire devoured the hopes of their lives.
In a dozen, a hundred, places the flames shot up redly.
Huge, strong buildings which the earthquake had spared fell an unresisting
prey to the flames. The great, iron-bound, towering Spreckles building,
a steeple-like structure, of eighteen stories in height, the tallest
skyscraper in the city, had resisted the earthquake and remained proudly
erect. But now the flames gathered round and assailed it. From
both sides came their attack. A broad district near by, containing many
large hotels and lodging houses, was being fiercely burnt out, and soon the
windows of the lofty building cracked and splintered, the flames shot
triumphantly within, and almost in an instant the vast interior was a
seething furnace, the wild flames rushing and leaping within until only
the blackened walls remained.
THE RESISTLESS MARCH OF THE FLAMES.
This was the region of the newspaper offices, and they
quickly succumbed. The Examiner, standing across Third Street
from Spreckles, collapsed from the earthquake shock. A flimsy
edifice, it had long been looked upon as dangerous. Another building in
the rear of this alone resisted both flames and smoke. Across
Market Street from the Examiner stood the Chronicle building, a
dozen stories high. Firmly built, it had borne the earthquake
assault unharmed, but the flames were an enemy against which it had
no defense, and it was quickly added to the victims of the fire-fiend.
Farther down Market Street, the chief business thoroughfare of the city,
stood that great caravansary, the Palace Hotel, which for thirty years had
been a favorite hostelry, housing the bulk of the visitors to the Californian
metropolis. Its time had come. Doom hovered over it. Its
guests had fled in good season, as they saw the irresistible approach of the
conquering flames. Soon it was ablaze; quickly from every window of its
broad front the tongues of flame curled hotly in the air; it became a
thrice-heated furnace, like so many of the neighboring structures, adding its
quota to the vast cloud of smoke that hung over the burning city, and
rapidly sinking in red ruin to the earth.
All day Wednesday the fire spread unchecked, all efforts to stay its
devouring fury proving futile. In the business section of the city
everything was in ruins. Not a business house was left standing.
Theatres crumbled into smouldering heaps. Factories and commission
houses sank to red ruin before the devouring flames. The scene was like that
of ancient Babylon in its fall, or old Rome when set on fire by Nero's
command, as tradition tells. In modern times there has been nothing to
equal it except the conflagration at Chicago, when the flames swept to ruin
that queen city of the Great Lakes.
When night fell and the sun withdrew his beams the spectacle was one at
once magnificent and awe-inspiring. The city resembled one vast blazing
furnace. Looking over it from a high hill in the western section, the
flames could be seen ascending skyward for miles upon miles, while in the
midst of the red spirals of flame could be seen at intervals the black
skeletons and falling towers of doomed buildings. Above all this hung a
dense pall of smoke, showing lurid where the flames were reflected from its
dark and threatening surface. To those nearer the scene presented
many pathetic and distressing features, the fire glare throwing
weird shadows over the worn and panic-stricken faces of the
woe-begone fugitives, driven from their homes and wandering the streets
in helpless misery. Many of them lay sleeping on piles of
blankets and clothing which they had brought with them, or on the
hard sidewalks, or the grass of the open parks.
THE CARE OF THE WOUNDED.
Through all the streets ambulances and express wagons were hurrying,
carrying dead and injured to morgues and hospitals. But these refuges
for the wounded or receptacles for the dead were no safer than the remainder
of the city. In the morgue at the Hall of Justice fifty bodies lay, but
the approach of the flames rendered it necessary to remove to Jackson Square
these mutilated remnants of what had once been men. Hospitals were also
abandoned at intervals, doctors and nurses being forced to remove their
patients in haste from the approaching flames.
There is an open park opposite City Hall. Here the Board
of Supervisors met, and, with fifty substantial citizens who joined them,
formed a Committee of Safety, to take in hand the direction of affairs and to
seek safe quarters for the dying and the dead. Strangely enough, Mechanics'
Pavilion, opposite City Hall, had escaped injury from the earthquake, though
it was only a wooden building. It had the largest floor in San
Francisco, and was pressed into service at once. The police and the
troops, working in harmony together, passed the word that the dead and
injured should be brought there, the hospitals and morgue having
become choked, and the order was quickly obeyed, until about 400 of
the hurt, many of them terribly mangled, were laid in improvised
cots, attended by all the physicians and trained nurses who could
be obtained.
The corpses were much fewer, the workers being too busy in fighting the
fire and caring for the wounded to give time and attention as yet to the
dead. But one of the first wagons to arrive brought a whole
family—father, mother and three children—all dead except the baby, which
had a broken arm and a terrible cut across the forehead. They had been
dragged from the ruins of their house on the water front. A large
consignment of bodies, mostly of workingmen, came from a small hotel on Eddy
Street, through the roof of which the upper part of a tall building next door
had fallen, crushing all below.
FIRE ATTACKS THE MINT.
To return to the story of the conflagration, the escape of
the United States Mint was one of the most remarkable incidents. Within
the vaults of this fine structure was the vast sum of $300,000,000 in gold
and silver coin and a value of $8,000,000 in bullion, and toward this mighty
sum of wealth the flames swept on all sides, as if eager to add the reservoir
of the precious metals to their spoils. The Mint building passed
through the earthquake with little damage, though its big smokestacks were
badly shaken. The fire seemed bent on making it its prey, every building
around it being burned to the ground, and it remaining the only
building for blocks that escaped destruction.
Its safety was due to the energy and activity of its
employees. Superintendent Leach reached it shortly after the shock and found
a number of men already there, whom he stationed at points of vantage from
roof to basement. The fire apparatus of the Mint was brought into
service and help given by the fire department, and after a period of
strenuous labor the flames were driven back. The peril for a time was
critical, the windows on Mint Avenue taking fire and also those on the rear
three stories, and the flames for a time pouring in and driving back the
workers. The roof also caught fire, but the men within fought like
Titans, and efficient aid was given by a squad of soldiers sent to
them. In the end the fire fiend was vanquished, though considerable
damage was done to the adjusting rooms and the refinery, while the heavy
stone cornice on that side of the building was destroyed. The total
loss to the Mint was later estimated at $15,000.
Late on Wednesday evening the fire front crept close up to Mechanics'
Pavilion, where a corps of fifty physicians and numerous nurses were active
in the work of relief to the wounded. Ambulances and automobiles were busy
unloading new patients rescued from the ruins when word came that the
building would have to be vacated in haste. Every available vehicle was
at once pressed into service and the patients removed as rapidly as possible,
being taken to hospitals and private houses in the safer parts of
the city. Hardly had the last of the injured been carried through
the door when the roof was seen to be in a blaze, and shortly
afterward the whole building burst into a whirlwind of flame.
At midnight the fire was raging and roaring with unslacked rage, and at
dawn of Thursday its fury was undiminished. The work of destruction was
already immense. In much of the Hayes Valley district, south of
McAllister and north of Market Street, the destruction was complete.
From the Mechanics' Pavilion and St. Nicholas Hotel opposite down to Oakland
Ferry the journey was heartrending, the scene appalling. On each side
was ruin, nothing but ruin, and hillocks of masonry and heaps of rubbish of
every description filled to its middle the city's greatest
thoroughfare.
Across an alley from the Post Office stood the Grant Building, one of
the headquarters of the army. Of this only the smoke-darkened walls
were left. On Market Street opposite this building the beautiful front
of the Hibernian Savings Bank, the favorite institution of the middle and
poorer classes, presented a hideous aspect of ruin. At eleven o'clock
of Wednesday night the north side of Market Street stood untouched, and hopes
were entertained that the great Flood, Crocker, Phelan and other buildings
would be spared, but the hunger of the fire fiend was not yet satiated,
and the following day these proud structures had only their
blackened ruins to show. On both sides of Market Street, down to the
ferry, the tale was the same. The handsome and gigantic St.
Francis Hotel, on Powell Street, fronting on Union Square, was left
a ruined shell. This was one of the lofty steel structures that
bore unharmed the earthquake shock, but quickly succumbed to the
flames. Among the other skyscrapers north of Market Street that
perished were the fourteen-story Merchants' Exchange, and the great
Mills Building, occupying almost an entire block.
One section of the city that went without pity, as it had long stood
with reprobation, was that group of disreputable buildings known as
Chinatown, the place of residence of many thousands of Celestials. The
flames made their way unchecked in this direction, and by noon on Thursday
the whole section was a raging furnace, the denizens escaping with what they
could carry of their simple possessions. On the farther western side
the flames cut a wide swath to Van Ness Avenue, a wide thoroughfare, at which
it was hoped the march of the fire in this direction might be
checked, especially as the water mains here furnished a weak supply.
In the Missouri district, to the south of Market Street, the zone of
ruin extended westward toward the extreme southern portion, but was checked
at Fourteenth and Missouri Streets by the wholesale use of dynamite. At
this point were located the Southern Pacific Hospital, the St. Francis
Hospital and the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In order to save
these institutions, buildings were blown up all around them, and by noon the
danger was averted. It later became necessary to destroy the Southern
Pacific Hospital with dynamite, the patients having been removed to places
of safety.
THE PALACES ON NOB'S HILL.
In the centre of San Francisco rises the aristocratic
elevation known as Nob's Hill, on which the early millionaires built
their homes, and on which stood the city's most palatial residences.
It ascends so abruptly from Kearney Street that it is inaccessible to any
kind of vehicle, the slope being at any angle little short of forty-five
degrees. It is as steep on the south side, and the only approach by
carriage is from the north. To this hill is due the pioneer cable
railway, built in the early '70's.
Here the "big four" of the railroad magnates—Stanford,
Hopkins, Huntington and Crocker—had put millions in their mansions,
the Mark Hopkins residence being said to have cost $2,500,000.
These men are all dead, and the last named edifice has been converted into
the Hopkins Art Institute, and at the time of the fire was well filled with
costly art treasures. The Stanford Museum, which also contains valuable
objects of art, is now the property of the Leland Stanford University.
The Flood mansion, which cost more than $1,000,000, was one of the showy
residences on this hill, west of it being the Huntington home and farther
west the Crocker residence, with its broad lawns and magnificent
stables. Many other beautiful and costly houses stood on this hill, and
opposite the Stanford and Hopkins edifices the great Fairmount Hotel had
for two years past been in process of construction and was
practically completed. On the northeastern slope of this hill stood the
famous Chinatown, through which it was necessary to pass to ascend
Nob's Hill from the principal section of the wholesale district.
This region of palaces was the next to fall a prey to the insatiable
flames. Early Thursday morning a change in the wind sent the fire
westward, eating its way from the water front north of Market Street toward
Nob's Hill. Steadily but surely it climbed the slope, and the Stanford
and Hopkins edifices fell victims to its fury. Others of the palaces of
millionairedom followed. Huge clouds of smoke enveloped the beautiful
white stone Fairmount Hotel, and there was a general feeling of horror when
this magnificent structure seemed doomed. To it the Committe of
Safety had retreated, but the flames from the burning buildings
opposite reached it, and the committee once more migrated in search of
safe quarters. Fortunately, it escaped with little damage, its
walls remaining intact and much of the interior being left in a state
of preservation, warranting its managers to offer space within it to the
committees whose aim it was to help the homeless or to store supplies.
Some of the woodwork of the building was destroyed by the fire, but the
structure was in such good condition that work on it was quickly resumed,
with the statement that its completion would not be delayed more than three
months beyond the date set, which was November, 19O6.
In the district extending northwestwardly from Kearney Street
and Montgomery Avenue, untouched during the first day, the fire
spread freely on the second. This district embraces the Latin
quarter, peopled by various nationalities, the houses being of the
flimsiest construction. Once it had gained a foothold there, the fire
swept onward as though making its way through a forest in the
driest summer season.
An apochryphal incident is told of the fire in this quarter, which may
be repeated as one example of the fables set afloat. It is stated that
water to fight the fire here was sadly lacking, the only available supply
being from an old well. At a critical moment the pump sucked dry, the
water in the well being exhausted. The residents were not yet
conquered. Some of them threw open their cellar doors and, calling for
assistance, began to roll out barrels of red wine. Barrel after barrel
appeared, until fully five hundred gallons were ready for use. Then the
barrel heads were smashed in and the bucket brigade turned from water to
wine. Sacks were dipped in the wine and used for fighting the
fire. Beds were stripped of their blankets and these soaked in the wine
and hung over exposed portions of the cottages, while men on the
roofs drenched the shingles and sides of the houses with wine.
The postscript to this queer story is that the wine won and
the firefighters saved their homes. The story is worth
retelling, though it may be added that wine, if it contained much
alcohol, would serve as a feeder rather than as an extinguisher of
flame.
A striking description of the aspect of the city on that
terrible Wednesday is told by Jerome B. Clark, whose home was in
Berkeley, but who did business in San Francisco. He left for the city
early Wednesday morning, after a minor shake-up at home, which he
thus describes:
A VIVID FIRE PICTURE.
"I was asleep and was awakened by the house rocking. With
the exception of water in vases, and milk in pans being spilled, and one
of our chimneys badly cracked, we escaped with nothing but a bad scare, but I
can assure you it was a terrific and terrifying experience to feel that old
house rocking, jolting and jumping under us, with the most terrible roar,
dull, deep and nerve-racking. It calmed down after that and we went
back to bed, only to get up at six o'clock to find that neighbors had
suffered by having vases knocked from tables, bric-a-brac knocked around,
tiles knocked out of grates and scarcely a chimney left standing.
We thought that we had had the worst of it, so I started over to the city
as usual, reaching there about eight o'clock, and it is just impossible to
describe the scenes that met my eyes.
"In every direction from the ferry building flames were seething, and as
I stood there, a five-story building half a block away fell with a crash, and
the flames swept clear across Market Street and caught a new fireproof
building recently erected. The streets in places had sunk three or four
feet, in others great humps had appeared four or five feet high. The
street car tracks were bent and twisted out of shape. Electric wires
lay in every direction. Streets on all sides were filled with brick and
mortar, buildings either completely collapsed or brick fronts had just
dropped completely off. Wagons with horses hitched to them, drivers
and all, lying on the streets, all dead, struck and killed by the falling
bricks, these mostly the wagons of the produce dealers, who do the greater
part of their work at that hour of the morning. Warehouses and large
wholesale houses of all descriptions either down, or walls bulging, or else
twisted, buildings moved bodily two or three feet out of a line and still
standing with walls all cracked.
"The Call building, a twelve-story skyscraper, stood, and looked all
right at first glance, but had moved at the base two feet at one end out into
the sidewalk, and the elevators refused to work, all the interior being just
twisted out of shape. It afterward burned as I watched it. I
worked my way in from the ferry, climbing over piles of brick and mortar and
keeping to the centre of the street and avoiding live wires that lay around
on every side, trying to get to my office. I got within two blocks of
it and was stopped by the police on account of falling walls. I
saw that the block in which I was located was on fire, and seemed doomed,
so turned back and went up into the city.
"Not knowing San Francisco, you would not know the various buildings,
but fires were blazing in all directions, and all of the finest and best of
the office and business buildings were either burning or surrounded.
They pumped water from the bay, but the fire was soon too far away from the
water front to make any efforts in this direction of much avail. The
water mains had been broken by the earthquake, and so there was no supply for
the fire engines and they were helpless. The only way out of it was to
dynamite, and I saw some of the finest and most beautiful buildings in
the city, new modern palaces, blown to atoms. First they blew up
one or two buildings at a time. Finding that of no avail, they
took half a block; that was no use; then they took a block; but in
spite of them all the fire kept on spreading.
"The City Hall, which, while old, was quite a magnificent
building, occupying a large square block of land, was completely wrecked
by the earthquake, and to look upon reminded one of the pictures
of ancient ruins of Rome or Athens. The Palace Hotel stood for a
long time after everything near it had gone, but finally went up in smoke
as the rest. You could not look in any direction in the city but what
mass after mass of flame stared you in the face. To get about one had
to dodge from one street to another, back and forth in zigzag fashion, and
half an hour after going through a street, it would be impassable. One
after another of the magnificent business blocks went down. The newer
buildings seemed to have withstood the shock better than any others, except
well-built frame buildings. The former lost some of the outside shell,
but the frame stood all right, and in some cases after fire had eaten
them all to pieces, the steel skeleton, although badly twisted and warped,
still stood.
"When I finally left the city, it was all in flames as far as Eighth
Street, which is about a mile and a quarter or half from the water
front. I had to walk at least two miles around in order to get to the
ferry building, and when I got there you could see no buildings standing in
any direction. Nearly all the docks caved in or sheds were knocked
down, and all the streets along the water front were a mass of seams,
upheavals and depressions, car tracks twisted in all shapes. Cars that
had stood on sidings were all in ashes and still burning."
Wednesday's conflagration continued unabated throughout Thursday, and it
was not until late on Friday that the fire-fighters got it safely under
control. They worked like heroes, struggling almost without rest,
keeping up the nearly hopeless conflict until they fairly fell in their
tracks from fatigue. Handicapped by the lack of water, they in one case
brought it from the bay through lines of hose well on to a mile in
length. Yet despite all they could do block after block of San
Francisco's greatest buildings succumbed to the flames and sank in red ruin
before their eyes.
THE LANDMARKS CONSUMED.
On all sides famous landmarks yielded to the fury of the flames. For
three miles along the water front the ground was swept clean of buildings,
the blackened beams and great skeletons of factories, warehouses and business
edifices standing silhouetted against a background of flames, while the whole
commercial and office quarter of Market Street suffered a similar fate.
We may briefly instance some of these victims of the flames.
Among them were the Occidental Hotel, on Montgomery Street, for years
the headquarters for army officers; the old Lick House, built by James Lick,
the philanthropist; the California Hotel and Theatre, on Bush Street; and of
theatres, the Orpheum, the Alcazar, the Majestic, the Columbia, the Magic,
the Central, Fisher's and the Grand Opera House, on Missouri Street, where
the Conried Opera Company had just opened for a two weeks' opera
season.
The banks that fell were numerous, including the Nevada National Bank,
the California, the Canadian Bank of Commerce, the First National, the London
and San Francisco, the London, Paris and American, the Bank of British North
America, the German-American Savings Bank and the Crocker-Woolworth Bank
building. A large number of splendid apartment houses were also
destroyed, and the tide of destruction swept away a host of noble buildings
far too numerous to mention.
At Post Street and Grant Avenue stood the Bohemian Club, one of
the widest known social organizations in the world. Its
membership included many men famous in art, literature and commerce.
Its rooms were decorated with the works of members, many of whose
names are known wherever paintings are discussed and many of
them priceless in their associations. Most of these were saved.
There were on special exhibition in the "Jinks" room of the Bohemian
Club a dozen paintings by old masters, including a Rembrandt, a Diaz,
a Murillo and others, probably worth $100,000. These paintings
were lost with the building, which went down in the flames.
One of the great losses was that of St. Ignatius' Church and College, at
Van Ness Avenue and Hayes Street, the greatest Jesuitical institution in the
west, which cost a couple of millions of dollars. The Merchants'
Exchange building, a twelve-story structure, eleven of whose floors were
occupied as offices by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, was added to
the sum of losses.
THE FIRE UNDER CONTROL.
For three long days the terrible fire fiend kept up his work,
and the fight went on until late on Friday, when the sweep of the flames
was at length checked and the fire brought under control. The principal agent
in this victory was dynamite, which was freely used. To its work a
separate chapter will be devoted. When at length the area of the
conflagration was limited the wealthiest part of the city lay in embers and
ashes, one of the principal localities to escape being Pacific Heights, a
mile west from Nob's Hill, on which stood many costly homes of recent
construction.
On Friday night the fire that had worked its way from Nob's Hill
to North Beach Street, sweeping that quarter clean of buildings, veered
before a fierce wind and made its way southerly to the great sea wall, with
its docks and grain warehouses. The flames reached the tanks of the San
Francisco Gas Company, which had previously been pumped out, and on Saturday
morning the grain sheds on the water front, about half a mile north of the
ferry station, were fiercely burning. But the fire here was confined to
a small area, and, with the work of fireboats in the bay and of the firemen
on shore, who used salt water pumped into their engines, it was prevented
from reaching the ferry building and the docks in that vicinity.
The buildings on a high slope between Van Ness and Polk Streets, Union
and Filbert Streets, were blazing fiercely, fanned by a high wind, but the
blocks here were so thinly settled that the fire had little chance of
spreading widely from this point. In fact, it was at length practically
under control, and the entire western addition of the city west of Van Ness
Avenue was safe from the flames. The great struggle was fairly at an
end, and the brave force of workers were at length given some respite from
their strenuous labors.
During the height of the struggle and the days of exhaustion
and depression that followed, exaggerated accounts of the losses and
of the area swept by the flames were current, some estimate making
the extent of the fire fifteen square miles out of the total of
twenty-five square miles of the city's area. It was not until Friday,
the 27th, that an official survey of the burned district, made by
City Surveyor Woodward, was completed, and the total area burned
over found to be 2,500 acres, a trifle less than four square miles. This,
however, embraced the heart of the business section and many of the principal
residence streets, much of the saved area being occupied by the dwellings of
the poorer people, so that the money loss was immensely greater than the
percentage of ground burned over would indicate.
Fighting the Flames With Dynamite.
Shaken by earthquake, swept by flames, the water supply cut off
by the breaking of the mains, the authorities of the doomed city for
a time stood appalled. What could be done to stay the fierce
march of the flames which were sweeping resistlessly over palace and hovel
alike, over stately hall and miserable hut? Water was not to be had;
what was to take its place? Nothing remained but to meet ruin with
ruin, to make a desert in the path of the fire and thus seek to stop its
march. They had dynamite, gunpowder and other explosives, and in the
frightful exigency there was nothing else to be used. Only for a brief
interval did the authorities yield to the general feeling of
helplessness. Then they aroused themselves to the demands of the
occasion and prepared to do all in the power of man in the effort to arrest
the conflagration.
While the soldiers under General Funston took military charge of the
city, squads of cavalry and troops of infantry patrolling the streets and
guarding the sections that had not yet been touched by the flames, Mayor
Schmitz and Chief of Police Dinan sprang into the breach and prepared to make
a desperate charge against the platoons of the fire. This was not all
that was needed to be done. From the "Barbary Coast," as the resort of
the vicious and criminal classes was called, hordes of wretches poured out as
soon as night fell, seeking to slip through the guards and loot stores and
rob the dead in the burning section. Orders were given to the
soldiers to kill all who were engaged in such work, and these orders
were carried out. An associated Press reporter saw three of
these thieves shot and fatally wounded, and doubtless others of them
were similarly dealt with elsewhere.
A band of fire-fighters was quickly organized by the Mayor and Chief of
Police, and the devoted firemen put themselves in the face of the flames,
determined to do their utmost to stay them in their course. Cut off
from the use of their accustomed engines and water streams, which might have
been effective if brought into play at the beginning of the struggle, there
was nothing to work with but the dynamite cartridge and the gunpowder mine,
and they set bravely to work to do what they could with these. On every
side the roar of explosions could be heard, and the crash of falling walls
came to the ear, while people were forced to leave buildings which
still stood, but which it was decided must be felled. Frequently a
crash of stone and brick, followed by a cloud of dust, gave warning
to pedestrians that destruction was going on in the forefront of
the flames, and that travel in such localities was unsafe.
FIGHTING THE FLAMES.
All through the night of Wednesday and the morning of Thursday
this work went on, hopelessly but resolutely. During the following
day blasts could be heard in different sections at intervals of a
few minutes, and buildings not destroyed by fire were blown to atoms, but
over the gaps jumped the live flames, and the disheartened fire-fighters were
driven back step by step; but they continued the work with little regard for
their own safety and with unflinching desperation.
One instance of the peril they ran may be given.
Lieutenant Charles O. Pulis, commanding the Twenty-fourth Company of
Light Artillery, had placed a heavy charge of dynamite in a building
at Sixth and Jesse Streets. For some reason it did not explode,
and he returned to relight the fuse, thinking it had
become extinguished. While he was in the building the explosion
took place, and he received injuries that seemed likely to prove
fatal, his skull being fractured and several bones broken, while he
was injured internally. In the early morning, when the fire
reached the municipal building on Portsmouth Square, the nurses, with
the aid of soldiers, got out fifty bodies which were in the
temporary morgue and a number of patients from the receiving hospital.
Just after they reached the street with their gruesome charge a
building was blown up, and the flying bricks and splinters came falling
upon them. The nurses fortunately escaped harm, but several of
the soldiers were hurt, and had to be taken with the other patients to the
out-of-doors Presidio hospital.
The Southern Pacific Hospital, at Fourteenth and Missouri Streets, was
among the buildings destroyed by dynamite, the patients having been removed
to places of safety, and the Linda Vista and the Pleasanton, two large family
hotels on Jones Street, in the better part of the city, were also among those
blown up to stay the progress of the conflagration.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FIRE.
The fire had continued to creep onward and upward until it
reached the summit of Nob Hill, a district of splendid residences,
and threatened the handsome Fairmount Hotel, then the headquarters of the
Municipal Council, acting as a Committee of Public Safety. As day broke
the flames seized upon this beautiful structure, and the Council was forced
to retreat to new quarters. They finally met in the North End Police
Station, on Sacramento Street, and there entered actively upon their duties
of seeking to check the progress of the flames, maintain order in the city
and control and direct the host of fugitives, many of whom, still in a state
of semi-panic, were moving helplessly to and fro and sadly needed
wise counsels and a helping hand.
The fire-fighters meanwhile kept up their indefatigable work under the
direction of the Mayor and the chief of their department. The engines
almost from the start had proved useless from lack of water, and were either
abandoned or moved to the outlying districts, in the vain hope that the water
mains might be repaired in time to permit of a final stand against the
whirlwind march of the flames. The cloud of despair grew darker still
as the report spread that the city's supply of dynamite had given out.
"No more dynamite! No more dynamite!" screamed a fireman as he
ran up Ellis Street past the doomed Flood building at two o'clock
on Friday morning, tears standing in his smoke-smirched eyes.
"No more dynamite! O God! no more dynamite! We are lost!"
moaned the throng that heard his despairing words.
A NEW SUPPLY OF EXPLOSIVES.
So, at that hour, the supply of the explosive exhausted, and not
a dozen streams of water being thrown in the entire fire zone, the stunned
firemen and the stupefied people stood helpless with their eyes fixed in
despair upon the swiftly creeping flames.
Had all been like these the entire city would have been doomed,
but there were those at the head of affairs who never for a moment gave up
their resolution. Dynamite and giant powder were to be had in the
Presidio military reservation, and a requisition upon the army authorities
was made. The louder reverberations as the day advanced and night came
on showed that a fresh supply had been obtained, and that a new and
determined campaign against the conflagration had been entered upon.
Hitherto much of the work had been ignorantly and carelessly done, and by the
hasty and premature use of explosives more harm than good had been
occasioned.
As the fire continued to spread in spite of the heroic work of
the fighting corps, the Committee of Safety called a meeting at noon
on Friday and decided to blow up all the residences on the east side of
Van Ness Avenue, between Golden Gate and Pacific Avenues, a distance of one
mile. Van Ness Avenue is one of the most fashionable streets of the
city and has a width of 125 feet, a fact which led to the idea that a safety
line might be made here too broad for the flames to cross.
The firemen, therefore, although exhausted from over twenty-four hours'
work and lack of food, determined to make a desperate stand at this
point. They declared that should the fire cross Van Ness Avenue and the
wind continue its earlier direction toward the west, the destruction of San
Francisco would be virtually complete. The district west of Van Ness
Avenue and north of McAllister constitutes the finest part of the
metropolis. Here are located all of the finer homes of the well-to-do
and wealthier classes, and the resolution to destroy them was the last resort
of desperation.
Hundreds of police, regiments of soldiers and scores of volunteers were
sent into the doomed district to warn the people to flee. They heroically
responded to the demand of law and went bravely on their way, leaving their
loved homes and trudging painfully over the pavements with the little they
could carry away of their treasured possessions.
The reply of a grizzled fire engineer standing at O'Farrell Street and
Van Ness Avenue, beside a blackened engine, may not have been as terse as
that of Hugo's guardsman at Waterloo, but the pathos of it must have been as
great. In answer to the question of what they proposed to do, he
said:
"We are waiting for it to come. When it gets here we will make
one more stand. If it crosses Van Ness Avenue the city is gone."
THE SAVERS OF THE CITY.
Yet the work now to be done was much too important to be left to the
hands of untrained volunteers. Skilled engineers were needed, men used
to the scientific handling of explosives, and it was men of this kind who
finally saved what is left today of the city. Three men saved San Francisco,
so far as any San Francisco existed after the fire had worked its will, these
three constituting the dynamite squad who faced and defied the demon at Van
Ness Avenue.
When the burning city seemed doomed and the flames lit the sky farther
and farther to the west, Admiral McCalla sent a trio of his most trusted men
from Mare Island with orders to check the conflagration at any cost of
property. With them they brought a ton and a half of guncotton.
The terrific power of the explosive was equal to the maniac determination of
the fire. Captain MacBride was in charge of the squad, Chief Gunner
Adamson placed the charges and the third gunner set them off.
Stationing themselves on Van Ness Avenue, which the conflagration was
approaching with leaps and bounds from the burning business section of the
city, they went systematically to work, and when they had ended a broad open
space, occupied only by the dismantled ruins of buildings, remained of what
had been a long row of handsome and costly residences, which, with all their
treasures of furniture and articles of decoration, had been consigned to
hideous ruin.
The thunderous detonations, to which the terrified city listened all
that dreadful Friday night, meant much to those whose ears were deafened by
them. A million dollars' worth of property, noble residences and
worthless shacks alike, were blown to drifting dust, but that destruction
broke the fire and sent the raging flames back over their own charred
path. The whole east side of Van Ness Avenue, from the Golden Gate to
Greenwich, a distance of twenty-two blocks, or a mile and a half, was
dynamited a block deep, though most of the structures as yet had stood
untouched by spark or cinder. Not one charge failed. Not one
building stood upon its foundation.
Unless some second malicious miracle of nature should reverse
the direction of the west wind, by nine o'clock it was felt that
the populous district to the west, blocked with fleeing refugees
and unilluminated except by the disastrous glare on the water front, was
safe. Every pound of guncotton did its work, and though the ruins
burned, it was but feebly. From Golden Gate Avenue north the fire
crossed the wide street in but one place. That was at the Claus
Spreckels place, on the corner of California Street.
There the flames were writhing up the walls before the dynamiters could
reach the spot. Yet they made their way to the foundations, carrying
their explosives, despite the furnace-like heat. The charge had to be
placed so swiftly and the fuse lit in such a hurry that the explosion was not
quite successful from the trained viewpoint of the gunners. But though
the walls still stood, it was only an empty victory for the fire, as bare
brick and smoking ruins are poor food for flames.
Captain MacBride's dynamiting squad had realized that a stand
was hopeless except on Van Ness Avenue, their decision thus
coinciding with that of the authorities. They could have forced
their explosives farther in the burning section, but not a pound
of guncotton could be or was wasted. The ruined blocks of the
wide thoroughfare formed a trench through the clustered structures
that the conflagration, wild as it was, could not leap. Engines
pumping brine through Fort Mason from the bay completed the little
work that the guncotton had left, but for three days the
haggard-eyed firemen guarded the flickering ruins.
The desolate waste straight through the heart of the city remained a
mute witness to the most heroic and effective work of the
whole calamity. Three men did this, and when their work was over
and what stood of the city rested quietly for the first time,
they departed as modestly as they had come. They were ordered to
save San Francisco, and they obeyed orders, and Captain MacBride and
his two gunners made history on that dreadful night.
They stayed the march of the conflagration at that critical
point, leaving it no channel to spread except along the wharf region,
in which its final force was spent. One side of Van Ness Avenue
was gone; the other remained, the fire leaping the broad open space only
feebly in a few places, where it was easily extinguished.
In this connection it is well to put on record an
interesting circumstance. This is that there is one place within pistol
shot of San Francisco that the earthquake did not touch, that did not lose
a chimney or feel a tremor. That spot is Alcatraz Island. Despite the
fact that the island is covered with brick buildings, brick forts and brick
chimneys, not a brick was loosened nor a crack made nor a quiver felt.
When the scientist comes to write he will have his hands full explaining why
Alcatraz did not have any physical knowledge of the event. It was as if
New York were to be shaken to its foundation, and Governor's Island, quietly
pursuing its military routine, should escape without a qualm.
The Reign of Destruction and Devastation
Rarely, in the whole history of mankind, has a great city
been overwhelmed by destruction so suddenly and awfully as was
San Francisco. One minute its inhabitants slept in seeming safety
and security. Another minute passed and the whole great city
seemed tumbling around them, while sights of terror met the eyes of
the awakened multitude and sounds of horror came to their ears.
The roar of destruction filled the air as the solid crust of the
earth lifted and fell and the rocks rose and sank in billowing waves
like those of the open sea.
Not all, it is true, were asleep. There was the corps of
night workers, whose duties keep them abroad till day dawns. There
were those whose work calls them from their homes in the early
morn. People of this kind were in the streets and saw the advent of
the reign of devastation in its full extent. From the story of one
of these, P. Barrett, an editor on the Examiner, we select a
thrilling account of his experience on that morning of awe.
AN EDITOR'S NARRATIVE.
"I have seen this whole, great horror. I stood with two
other members of the Examiner staff on the corner of Market
Street, waiting for a car. Newspaper duties had kept us working until
five o'clock in the morning. Sunlight was coming out of the
early morning mist. It spread its brightness on the roofs of
the skyscrapers, on the domes and spires of churches, and blazed along up
the wide street with its countless banks and stores, its restaurants and
cafes. In the early morning the city was almost noiseless.
Occasionally a newspaper wagon clattered up the street or a milk wagon
rumbled along. One of my companions had told a funny story. We
were laughing at it. We stopped—the laugh unfinished on our
lips.
"Of a sudden we had found ourselves staggering and reeling. It
was as if the earth was slipping gently from under our feet. Then
came a sickening swaying of the earth that threw us flat upon our
faces. We struggled in the street. We could not get on our feet.
"I looked in a dazed fashion around me. I saw for an instant
the big buildings in what looked like a crazy dance. Then it seemed
as though my head were split with the roar that crashed into my ears. Big
buildings were crumbling as one might crush a biscuit in one's hand.
Great gray clouds of dust shot up with flying timbers, and storms of masonry
rained into the street. Wild, high jangles of smashing glass cut a
sharp note into the frightful roaring. Ahead of me a great cornice
crushed a man as if he were a maggot—a laborer in overalls on his way to the
Union Iron Works, with a dinner pail on his arm.
"Everywhere men were on all fours in the street, like
crawling bugs. Still the sickening, dreadful swaying of the
earth continued. It seemed a quarter of an hour before it
stopped. As a matter of fact, it lasted about three minutes.
Footing grew firm again, but hardly were we on our feet before we were sent
reeling again by repeated shocks, but they were milder. Clinging
to something, one could stand.
"The dust clouds were gone. It was quite dark, like twilight.
But I saw trolley tracks uprooted, twisted fantastically. I saw
wide wounds in the street. Water flooded out of one. A deadly
odor of gas from a broken main swept out of the other. Telegraph
poles were rocked like matches. A wild tangle of wires was in
the street. Some of the wires wriggled and shot blue sparks.
"From the south of us, faint, but all too clear, came a horrible chorus
of human cries of agony. Down there in a ramshackle section of the city
the wretched houses had fallen in upon the sleeping families. Down
there throughout the day a fire burned the great part of whose fuel it is too
gruesome a thing to contemplate.
"That was what came next—the fire. It shot up everywhere.
The fierce wave of destruction had carried a flaming torch with
it—agony, death and a flaming torch. It was just as if some
fire demon was rushing from place to place with such a torch."
WRECK AND RUIN.
The magnitude of the calamity became fully apparent after the
sun had risen and began to shine warmly and brightly from the east
over the ruined city. Old Sol, who had risen and looked down upon
this city for thousands of times, had never before seen such a
spectacle as that of this fateful morning. Where once rose noble
buildings were now to be seen cracked and tottering walls, fallen
chimneys, here and there fallen heaps of brick and mortar, and out of
and above all the red light of the mounting flames. From the middle
of the city's greatest thoroughfare ruin, only ruin, was to be seen on all
sides. To the south, in hundreds of blocks, hardly a building had
escaped unscathed. The cracked walls of the new Post Office showed the
rending power of the earthquake. A part of the splendid and costly City
Hall collapsed, the roof falling to the courtyard and the smaller towers
tumbling down. Some of the wharves, laden with goods of every sort,
slid into the bay. With them went thousands of tons of coal. On
the harbor front the earth sank from six to eight inches, and great cracks
opened in the streets.
San Francisco's famous Chinatown, the greatest settlement of
the Celestials on this continent, went down like a house of cards. When
the earthquake had passed this den of squalor and infamy was no more.
The Chinese theatres and joss-houses tumbled into ruins, rookery after
rookery collapsed, and hundreds of their inhabitants were buried alive.
Panic reigned supreme among the fugitives, who filled the streets in
frightened multitudes, dragging from the wreck whatever they could save of
their treasured possessions. Much the same was the case with the Japanese
quarter, which fire quickly invaded, the people fleeing in terror, carrying
on their backs what few of their household effects they were able to
rescue.
As for the people of Chinatown, however, no one knows or will ever know
the extent of the dread fate that overcame them, for no one knows the secrets
of that dark abode of infamy and crime, whose inhabitants burrowed
underground like so many ants; and hid their secrets deep in the earth.
THE RUIN OF CHINATOWN.
W. W. Overton, of Los Angeles, thus describes the Chinatown dens and
the revelations made by the earthquake and the flames:
"Strange is the scene where San Francisco's Chinatown stood.
No heap of smoking ruins marks the site of the wooden warrens where the
Orientals dwelt in thousands. Only a cavern remains, pitted with deep
holes and lined with dark passageways, from whose depths come smoke
wreaths. White men never knew the depth of Chinatown's underground
city. Many had gone beneath the street level two and three stories, but
now that the place had been unmasked, men may see where its inner secrets
lay. In places one can see passages a hundred feet deep.
"The fire swept this Mongolian quarter clean. It left no shred
of the painted wooden fabric. It ate down to the bare ground,
and this lies stark, for the breezes have taken away the light ashes. Joss
houses and mission schools, groceries and opium dens, gambling resorts and
theatres, all of them went. These buildings blazed up like tissue
paper.
"From this place I saw hundreds of crazed yellow men flee.
In their arms they bore opium pipes, money bags, silks and
children. Beside them ran the trousered women and some hobbled
painfully. These were the men and women of the surface. Far beneath
the street levels in those cellars and passageways were other
lives. Women, who never saw the day from their darkened prisons, and
their blinking jailors were caught and eaten by the flames."
Devastation spread widely on all sides, ruining the homes of the rich as
well as of the poor, of Americans as well as of Europeans and Asiatics, the
marts of trade, the haunts of pleasure, the realms of science and art, the
resorts of thousands of the gay population of the Golden State
metropolis. To attempt to tell the whole story of destruction and ruin
would be to describe all for which San Francisco stood. Science
suffered in the loss of the San Francisco Academy of Sciences, which was
destroyed with its invaluable contents. This building, erected fifteen
years ago at a cost of $500,000, was a seven-story building with a rich
collection of objects of science. Much of the academy's contents can
never be replaced. It represented the work of many years. There
was a rare collection of Pacific Sea birds which was the most valuable of
its kind in the world. In fact, the entire collection of birds
ranked very high, was visited by ornithologists from every country,
and was the pride of the city. The academy was founded in 1850,
James Lick, the same man who endowed the Lick Observatory, giving
it $1,000,000, so it was on a prosperous footing. It will take
many years of active labor to replace the losses of an hour or two of the
reign of fire in this institution, while much that it held is gone beyond
restoration.
LOSS TO ART AND SCIENCE.
Art suffered as severely as science, the valuable collections
in private and public buildings being nearly all destroyed. We
have spoken of the rare paintings burned in the Bohemian Club
building. The collections on Nob's Hill suffered as severely. When
the mansions here, the Fairmount Hotel and Mark Hopkins Institute
were approached by the flames, many attempts were made to remove some
of the priceless works of art from the buildings. A crowd of
soldiers was sent to the Flood and the Huntington mansions and the
Hopkins Institute to rescue the paintings. From the Huntington home
and the Flood mansion canvases were cut from the framework with
knives. The collections in the three buildings, valued in the hundreds
of thousands, in great part were destroyed, few being saved from
the ravages of the fire.
The destruction of the libraries, with their valuable collections of
books, was also a very serious loss to the city and its people. Of these
there were nine of some prominence, the Sutro Library containing many rare
books among its 200,000 volumes, while that of the Mechanics Institute
possessed property valued at $2,000,000. The Public Library occupied a part
of the City Hall, the new building proposed by the city, with aid to the
extent of $750,000 by Andrew Carnegie, being fortunately still in
embryo.
In the burning of the banks the losses were limited to the buildings,
their money and other valuables being securely locked in fireproof
vaults. But these became so heated by the flames that it was necessary
to leave them to a gradual cooling for days, during which their treasures
were unavailable, and those with deposits, small or large, were obliged to
depend on the benevolence of the nation for food, such wealth as was left to
them being locked up beyond their reach. It was the same with the
United States Sub-Treasury, which was entirely destroyed by fire, its
vaults, which contained all the cash on hand, being alone preserved.
Guards were put over these to protect their contents against possible loss
by theft.
One serious effect of the conflagration was the general disorganization
of the telegraph system. News items were sent over the wires, but
private messages inquiring about missing friends for days failed to reach the
parties concerned or to bring any return.
That the world received news of the San Francisco disaster during the
dread day after the earthquake is due in part to the courage of the telegraph
operators, who stuck to their posts and, continued to send news and other
messages in spite of great personal danger.
The operators and officials of the Postal Telegraph Company remained in
the main office of the company, at the corner of Market and Montgomery
Streets, opposite the Palace Hotel, until they were ordered out of it because
of the danger of the dynamite explosions in the immediate vicinity. The
men proceeded to Oakland, across the bay, and took possession of the office
there. That night the company operated seven wires from Oakland, all
messages from the city being taken across the bay in boats. As the days
passed on the service gradually improved, but a week or more passed
away before the general service of the company became satisfactory.
THE DANGER FROM THIRST.
Such news as came from the city was full of tales of horror. For
a number of days one of the chief sources of trouble was from
thirst. Although the earthquake shocks had broken water mains in
probably hundreds of places, strange to say, no water, or very little
at least, appeared on the surface of the ground. Public fountains
on Market Street gave out no relief to the thirsty thousands.
At Powell and Market Streets a small stream of water spurted up through
the cobblestones and formed a muddy pool, at which the thirsty were glad
enough to drink. The soldiers, disregarding the order not to let people
move about, permitted bucket brigades to go forth and bring back water to
relieve the women and the crying children. To reach the water it was
necessary sometimes to go a mile to one of the four reservoirs which top the
hills.
Here is a story told by one observer of incidents in the city during the
fire:
"I talked to one man who slept in Alta Plaza. The fire was
going on in the district south of them, and at intervals all
night exhausted fire-fighters made their way to the plaza and
dropped, with the breath out of them, among the huddled people and
the bundles of household goods. The soldiers, who are
administering affairs with all the justice of judges and all the devotion
of heroes, kept three or four buckets of water, even from the women, for
these men, who kept coming all night long. There was a little food,
also kept by the soldiers for these emergencies, and the sergeant had in his
charge one precious bottle of whisky, from which he doled out drinks to those
who were utterly exhausted.
"Over in a corner of the plaza a band of men and women were praying, and
one fanatic, driven crazy by horror, was crying out at the top of his
voice:
"'The Lord sent it, the Lord!'
"His hysterical crying got in the nerves of the soldiers and bade fair
to start a panic among the women and children, so the sergeant went over and
stopped it by force. All night they huddled together in this hell, with
the fire making it bright as day on all sides; and in the morning the
soldiers, using their sense again, commandeered a supply of bread from a
bakery, sent out another water squad, and fed the refugees with a semblance
of breakfast.
"There was one woman in the crowd who had been separated from
her husband in a rush of the smoke and did not know whether he
was living. The women attended to her all night and in the morning
the soldiers passed her through the lines in her search. A few
Chinese made their way into the crowd. They were trembling,
pitifully scared and willing to stop wherever the soldiers placed them.
This is only a glimpse of the horrible night in the parks and
open places.
"We learn here that many of the well-to-do people in the upper residence
district have gathered in the strangers from the highways and byways and
given them shelter and comfort for the night in their living rooms and
drawing rooms. Shelter seems to have come more easily than food.
Not an ounce of supplies, of course, has come in for two days, and most of
the permanent stores are in the hands of the soldiers, who dole them out to
all comers alike. But the hungry cannot always find the military stores
and the news has not gotten about, since there are no newspapers and no
regular means of communication.
"An Italian tells me that he was taken in by a family living in
a three-story house in the fashionable Pacific Avenue. There
were twenty refugees who passed the night in the drawing room of
that house, whose mistress took down hangings to make them comfortable. In
the morning all the food that was left over in that home of wealth was enough
flour and baking powder to shake together a breakfast for the refugees.
They were hardly ready to leave that house when the fire came their way, and
the people of the house, together with the refugees, who included two
Chinese, made their way to the open ground of the Presidio. With them
streamed a procession of folks carrying valuables in bundles.
"There came out, too, tales of both heroism and crime. The
firemen had been at it for thirty-six hours under such conditions
as firemen never before faced, and they do little more than
give directions, while the volunteers, thousands of young Western men who
have remained to see it through, do the work. The troops have all that
they can do to handle the crowds in the streets and prevent panics. The
work of dynamiting, tearing down and rescuing is in the hands of the
volunteers.
"This morning an eddy of flame from the edge of the burning wholesale
district ran up the slope of Russian Hill, the highest eminence in the
city. All along the edge of that hill and up the slopes are little
frame houses which hold Italians and Mexicans. A corps of volunteer
aides ran along the edge of the fire, warning people out of the houses.
But the flames ran too fast and three women were caught in the upper story of
an old frame house. A young man tore a rail from a fence, managed to
climb it, and reached the window. He bundled one woman out and slid her
down the rail; then the roof caught fire. He seized another woman
and managed to drop her on the rail, down which she slid without hurting
herself a great deal. But the roof fell while he was struggling with
another woman and they fell together into the flames. There must have
been hundreds of such heroisms and dozens of such catastrophes. We are
so drunken and dulled by horror that we take such stories calmly now.
We are saturated."
HOW LOOTING WAS HINDERED.
One thing to be strictly guarded against in those days
of destruction was the outbreak of lawlessness. A city as large
as San Francisco is sure to hold a large number of the brigands
of civilization, a horde who need to be kept under strict discipline at
all times, and especially when calamity lets down for the time being the bars
of the law, at which time many of the usually law- abiding would join their
ranks if any license were allowed. The authorities made haste to guard
against this and certain other dangers, Mayor Schmitz issuing on Wednesday
the following proclamation:
"The Federal troops, the members of the regular police force and special
police officers have been authorized to kill any and all persons engaged in
looting or in the commission of any other crime.
"I have directed all the gas and electric lighting companies not to turn
on gas or electricity until I order them to do so. You may, therefore,
expect the city to remain in darkness for an indefinite time.
"I request all citizens to remain at home from darkness until daylight
every night until order is restored.
"I warn all citizens of the danger of fire from damaged or destroyed
chimneys, broken or leaking gas pipes or fixtures or any like causes."
He also ordered that no lights should be used in the houses and no fires
built in the houses until the chimneys had been inspected and repaired.
There was need of vigilance in this direction, for the vandals
were quickly at work. Routed out from their dens along the wharves,
the rats of the waterfront, the drifters on the back eddy of civilization,
crawled out intent on plunder. Early in the day a policeman caught one
of these men creeping through the window of a small bank on Montgomery Street
and shot him dead. But the police were kept too busy at other necessary
duties to devote much time to these wretches, and for a time many of them
plundered at will, though some of them met with quick and sure
retribution.
STORIES BY SIGHTSEERS.
One onlooker says: "Were it not for the fact that the soldiers
in charge of the city do not hesitate in shooting down the ghouls
the lawless element would predominate. Not alone do the
soldiers execute the law. On Wednesday afternoon, in front of the
Palace Hotel, a crowd of workers in the mines discovered a miscreant
in the act of robbing a corpse of its jewels. Without delay he
was seized, a rope obtained, and he was strung up to a beam that was left
standing in the ruined entrance of the hotel. No sooner had he been
hoisted up and a hitch taken in the rope than one of his fellow-criminals was
captured. Stopping only to obtain a few yards of hemp, a knot was
quickly tied, and the wretch was soon adorning the hotel entrance by the side
of the other dastard.
"These are the only two instances I saw, but I heard of many that were
seen by others. The soldiers do all they can, and while the unspeakable
crime of robbing the dead is undoubtedly being practiced, it would be many
times as prevalent were it not for the constant vigilance on all sides, as
well as the summary justice."
Another observer tells of an instance of this summary justice that came
under his eyes:
"At the corner of Market and Third Streets on Wednesday I saw a
man attempting to cut the fingers from the hand of a dead woman in order
to secure the rings which adorned the stiffened fingers. Three soldiers
witnessed the deed at the same time and ordered the man to throw up his
hands. Instead of obeying the command he drew a revolver from his
pocket and began to fire at his pursuer without warning. The three
soldiers, reinforced by half a dozen uniformed patrolmen, raised their rifles
to their shoulders and fired. With the first shots the man fell, and
when the soldiers went to the body to dump it into an alley nine bullets were
found to have entered it."
The warning this severity gave was accentuated in one instance in a most
effective manner. On a pile of bricks, stones and rubbish was thrown
the body of a man shot through the heart, and on his chest was pinned this
placard:
"Take warning!"
Those of the ghouls who saw this were likely to desist from
their detestable work, unless they valued spoils more than life.
Willis Ames, a Salt Lake City man, tells of the kind of justice done to
thieves, as it came under his observation:
"I saw man after man shot down by the troops. Most of these
were ghouls. One man made the trooper believe that one of the
dead bodies lying on a pile of rocks was his mother, and he was permitted
to go up to the body. Apparently overcome by grief, he threw himself
across the corpse. In another instant the soldiers discovered that he
was chewing the diamond earrings from the ears of the dead woman. 'Here
is where you get what is coming to you,' said one of the soldiers, and with
that he put a bullet through the ghoul. The diamonds were found in the
man's mouth afterward."
Others were shot to save them from the horror of being
burned alive. Max Fast, a garment worker, tells of such an
instance. He says:
"When the fire caught the Windsor Hotel at Fifth and Market
Streets there were three men on the roof, and it was impossible to get
them down. Rather than see the crazed men fall in with the roof and
be roasted alive the military officer directed his men to shoot
them, which they did in the presence of 5,000 people."
He further states: "At Jefferson Square I saw a fatal clash between the
military and the police. A policeman ordered a soldier to take up a
dead body to put it in the wagon, and the soldier ordered the policeman to do
it. Words followed, and the soldier shot the policeman dead."
Among the many stories of this character on record is that of
a concerted effort to break into and rob the Mint, which led to the death
of fourteen men, who were shot down by the guard in charge. They had
disregarded the command of the officer in charge to desist. They
disobeyed, and the death of nearly the whole of them followed.
DEATH FOR SLIGHT OFFENSE.
As may well be imagined, the privilege given to fire at will
was very likely to lead to examples of unjustifiable haste in the use of
the rifle. Such haste is not charged against the United States troops,
but the militia and volunteer guards showed less judgment in the use of their
weapons. Thus we are told that one man was shot for the minor offense
of washing his hands in drinking water which had been brought with great
trouble for the thirsty people gathered in Columbia Park. It is also
said that a bank clerk, searching the ruins of his bank under orders, was
killed by a soldier who thought he was looting. More than one seems to
have been shot as looters for entering their own homes.
Among the reports there is one that two men were shot through
the windows of their houses because they disobeyed the general orders and
lit candles, and one woman because she lighted a fire in her cook
stove. Yet, if such unwarranted acts existed, there were others better
deserved. It is said that three men were lined up and shot before ten
thousand people. One was caught taking the rings from a woman who had
fainted, another had stolen a piece of bread from a hungry child, and the
third, little more than a boy, was found in the act of robbing tents.
One thief who escaped the bullet richly deserved it. He came upon a
Miss Logan when lying unconscious on the floor of the St. Francis Hotel
after the earthquake, and, rather than take the time to wrench some
valuable rings from her hand, cut off the finger bearing them, and left
her to the horrors of the coming fire.
The climax in the too free use of the rifle came on the 23d, when Major
H. C. Tilden, a prominent member of the General Relief Committee, was shot
and killed in his automobile by members of the citizens' patrol. Two
others in the car were struck by bullets. The automobile had been used as an
ambulance and the Red Cross flag was displayed on it. The excuse of the
shooters was that they did not see the flag and that the car did not stop
when challenged. This act led to an order forbidding the carrying of firearms
by the citizens' committees and to stricter regulation of the soldiers
in the use of their weapons.
Later on looting took a new form different from that at first shown and
was practiced by a different class of people. These were
the sightseers, many of them people of prominence, who entered upon
a crusade of relic hunting in Chinatown, gathering and carrying off from
the ashes of this quarter valuable pieces of chinaware, bronze ornaments,
etc. It became necessary to put a stop to this, and on April 30th four
militiamen were arrested while digging in the ruins of the Chinese bazaars,
and others were frightened away by shots fired over their heads. A
strong military line was then drawn around the district, and this last
resource of the looter came to an end.
The Panic Flight of a Homeless Host.
The scene that was visible in the streets of San Francisco on
that dread Wednesday morning was one to make the strongest shudder
with horror. Those three minutes of devastating earth tremors
were moments never to be forgotten. In such a time it is the
human instinct to get into the open air, and the people stumbled
from their heaving and quivering houses to find even the solid earth
was swaying and rising and falling, so that here and there great
rents opened in the streets. To the panic-stricken people the
minutes that followed seemed years of terror. Doubtless some among
them died of sheer fright and more went mad with terror. There was
a roar in the air like a burst of thunder, and from all directions came
the crash of falling walls. They would run forward, then stop, as
another shock seemed to take the earth from under their feet, and many of
them flung themselves face downward on the ground in an agony of fear.
Two or three minutes seemed to pass before the fugitives found their
voices. Then the screams of women and the wild cries of men rent the
air, and with one impulse the terror-stricken host fled toward the parks, to
get themselves as far as possible from the tottering and falling walls.
These speedily became packed with people, most of them in the night clothes
in which they had leaped or been flung from their beds, screaming and moaning
at the little shocks that at intervals followed the great one. The dawn
was just breaking. The gas and electric mains were gone and the
street lamps were all out. The sky was growing white in the east,
but before the sun could fling his early rays from the horizon there came
another light, a lurid and threatening one, that of the flames that had begun
to rise in the warehouse district.
The braver men and those without families to watch over set out for this
endangered region, half dressed as they were. In the early morning
light they could see the business district below them, many of the buildings
in ruins and the flames showing redly in five or six places. Through
the streets came the fire engines, called from the outlying districts by a
general alarm. The firemen were not aware as yet that no water was to
be had.
THE PANIC IN THE SLUMS.
On Portsmouth Square the panic was indescribable. This old
tree plaza, about which the early city was built, is now in the centre of
Chinatown, of the Italian district and of the "Barbary Coast," the
"Tenderloin" of the Western metropolis. It is the chief slum district
of the city. The tremor here ran up the Chinatown hill and shook down
part of the crazy buildings on its southern edge. It brought ruin also to
some of the Italian tenements. Portsmouth Square became the refuge of
the terrified inhabitants. Out from their underground burrows like so
many rats fled the Chinese, trembling in terror into the square, and seeking
by beating gongs and other noise-making instruments to scare off the
underground demons. Into the square from the other side came the
Italian refugees. The panic became a madness, knives were drawn in
the insanity of the moment, and two Chinamen were taken to the
morgue, stabbed to death for no other reason than pure madness. Here
on one side dwelt 20,000 Chinese, and on the other thousands of Italians,
Spaniards and Mexicans, while close at hand lived the riff-raff of the
"Barbary Coast."
Seemingly the whole of these rushed for that one square of open ground,
the two streams meeting in the centre of the square and heaping up on its
edges. There they squabbled and fought in the madness of panic and
despair, as so many mad wolves might have fought when caught in the red whirl
of a prairie fire, until the soldiers broke in and at the bayonet's point
brought some semblance of order out of the confusion of panic terror.
This scene in Portsmouth Square but illustrated the madness of
fear everywhere prevailing. On every side thousands were fleeing
from the roaring furnace that minute by minute seemed to extend
its boundaries.
THE FLIGHT FOR SAFETY.
In the awful scramble for safety the half-crazed
survivors disregarded everything but the thought of themselves and
their property. In every excavation and hole throughout the north
beach householders buried household effects, throwing them into
ditches and covering the holes. Attempts were made to mark the graves
of the property so that it could be recovered after the flames
were appeased.
The streets were filled with struggling people, some crying and weeping
and calling for missing loved ones. Crowding the sidewalks were
thousands of householders attempting to drag some of their effects to places
of safety. In some instances men with ropes were dragging trunks,
tandem style, while others had sewing machines strapped to the trunks.
Again, women were rushing for the hills, carrying on their arms only the
family cat or a bird cage.
There were two ideas in the minds of the fugitives, and in many cases
these two only. One of these was to escape to the open ground of Golden
Gate Park and the Presidio reservation; the other was to reach the ferry and
make their way out of the seemingly doomed city.
At the ferry building a crowd numbering thousands gathered, begging for
food and transportation across the bay. Hundreds had not even the ten
cents fare to Oakland. Most of the refugees at this point were Chinamen
and Italians, who had fled from their burned tenements with little or no
personal property.
Residents of the hillsides in the central portion of the city seemingly
were safe from the inferno of flames that was consuming the business
section. They watched the towering mounds of flames, and speculated as
to the extent of the territory that was doomed. Suddenly there was whispered
alarm up and down the long line of watchers, and they hurried away to drag
clothing, cooking utensils and scant provisions through the streets.
From Grant Avenue the procession moved westward. Men and women dragged
trunks, packed huge bundles of blankets, boxes of
provisions—everything. Wagons could not be hired except by paying the
most extortionate rates.
"Thank Heaven for the open space of the Presidio and for Golden Gate
Park!" was the unspoken thank-offering of many hearts. The great park,
with its thousand and more acres of area, extending from the thinly populated
part of the city across the sand dunes to the Pacific, seemed in that awful
hour a God-given place of refuge. Near it and extending to the Golden Gate
channel is the Presidio military reservation, containing 1,480 acres, and
with only a few houses on its broad extent. Here also was a place of
safety, provided that the forests which form a part of its area did
not burn.
THE EXODUS FROM THE BURNING CITY.
To these open spaces, to the suburbs, in every available
direction, the fugitives streamed, in thousands, in tens of thousands,
finally in hundreds of thousands, safety from those towering flames,
from the tottering walls of their dwellings, from a possible return of the
earthquake, their one overmastering thought. There were many persons
with scanty clothing, women in underskirts and thin waists and men in shirt
sleeves. Many women carried children, while others wheeled baby
carriages. It was a strange and weird procession, that kept up
unceasingly all that dreadful day and through the night that followed, as the
all-conquering flames spread the area of terror.
At intervals news came of what was doing behind the smoke cloud. The
area of the flames spread all night. People who had decided that their
houses were outside of the dangerous area and had decided to pass the night,
even after the terrible experience of the shake-up, under their roofs, hourly
gave up the idea and struggled to the parks. There they lay in
blankets, their choicest valuables by their sides, and the soldiers kept
watch and order. Many lay on the bare grass of the park, with nothing between
them and the chill night air. Fortunately, the weather was clear
and mild, but among those who lay under the open sky were men and
women who were delicately reared, accustomed all their lives to
luxurious surroundings, and these must have suffered severely during
that night of terror.
The fire was going on in the district south of them, and at intervals
all night exhausted fire-fighters made their way to the plaza and dropped,
with the breath out of them, among the huddled people and the bundles of
household goods. The soldiers, who were administering affairs with all
the justice of judges and all the devotion of heroes, kept three or four
buckets of water, even from the women, for these men, who continued to come
all the night long. There was a little food, also kept by the soldiers for
these emergencies, and the sergeant had in his charge one precious
bottle of whisky, from which he doled out drinks to those who were
utterly exhausted.
But there was no panic. The people were calm, stunned. They
did not seem to realize the extent of the calamity. They heard
that the city was being destroyed; they told each other in the
most natural tone that their residences were destroyed by the flames, but
there was no hysteria, no outcry, no criticism.
The trip to the hills and to the water front was one of
terrible hardship. Famishing women and children and exhausted men
were compelled to walk seven miles around the north shore in order
to avoid the flames and reach the ferries. Many dropped to the
street under the weight of their loads, and willing fathers and
husbands, their strength almost gone, strove to pick up and urge them
forward again.
In the panic many mad things were done. Even soldiers were
obliged in many instances to prevent men and women, made insane from
the misfortune that had engulfed them, from rushing into doomed buildings
in the hope of saving valuables from the ruins. In nearly every
instance such action resulted in death to those who tried it. At Larkin
and Sutter Streets, two men and a woman broke from the police and rushed into
a burning apartment house, never to reappear.
The rush to the parks and the dunes was followed in the days
that followed by as wild a rush to the ferries, due to the mad desire
to escape anywhere, in any way, from the burning city.
THE WILD RUSH TO THE FERRIES.
At the ferry station on Wednesday night there was much
confusion. Mingled in an inextricable mass were people of every race and
class on earth. A common misfortune and hunger obliterated
all distinctions. Chinese, lying on pallets of rags, slept
near exhausted white women with babies in their arms.
Bedding, household furniture of every description, pet animals and
trinkets, luggage and packages of every sort packed almost every foot
of space near the ferry building. Men spread bedding on the
pavement and calmly slept the sleep of exhaustion, while all around a
bedlam of confusion reigned.
Many of those who sought the ferry on that fatal Wednesday met a solid
wall of flames extending for squares in length and utterly impassable.
In their half insane eagerness to escape some of them would have rushed into
fatal danger but for the soldiers, who guarded the fire line and forced them
back. Only those reached the ferry who had come in precedence of the
flames, or who made a long detour to reach that avenue of flight. When
the news came to the camps of refugees that it was safe to cross the burned
area a procession began from the Golden Gate Park across the city and
down Market Street, the thoroughfare which had long been the pride of the
citizens, and a second from the Presidio, along the curving shore line of the
north bay, thence southward along the water front. Throughout these
routes, eight miles long, a continuous flow of humanity dragged its weary way
all day and far into the night amidst hundreds of vehicles, from the clumsy
garbage cart to the modern automobile. Almost every person and every
vehicle carried luggage. Drivers of vehicles were disregardful of
these exhausted, hungry refugees and drove straight through the crowd. So
dazed and deadened to all feeling were some of them that they were bumped
aside by carriage wheels or bumped out of the way by persons.
SCENES OF HUMOR AND PATHOS.
As already stated, the scene had its humorous as well as
its pathetic side, and various amusing stories are told by those who were
in a frame of mind to notice ludicrous incidents in the horrors of the
situation. Two race track men met in the drive.
"Hello, Bill; where are you living now?" asked one.
"You see that tree over there—that big one?" said Bill.
"Well, you climb that. My room is on the third branch to the left,"
and they went away laughing.
Another observer tells these incidents of the flight: "I saw one big fat
man calmly walking up Market Street, carrying a huge bird cage, and the cage
was empty. He seemed to enjoy looking at the wrecked buildings.
Another man was leading a huge Newfoundland dog and carrying a kitten in his
arms. He kept talking to the kitten. On Fell Street I noticed an old
woman, half dressed, pushing a sewing machine up the hill. A drawer
fell out, and she stopped to gather the fallen spools. Poor little
seamstress, it was now her all."
A more amusing instance of the spirit of saving is that told by another
narrator, who says that he saw a lone woman patiently pushing an upright
piano along the pavement a few inches at a time. Evidently in this case, too,
it was the poor soul's one great treasure on earth.
He also tells of a guest berating the proprietor of a hotel, a
few minutes after the shock, because he had not obeyed orders to call him
at five o'clock. He vowed he would never stop at that house again, a
vow he might well keep, as the house is no more.
In one room where two girls were dressing the floor gave way and one of
them disappeared.
"Where are you, Mary?" screamed her companion.
"Oh, I'm in the parlor," said Mary calmly, as she wriggled out of the
mass of plaster and mortar below.
At the handsome residence of Rudolph Spreckels, the wealthy financier,
the lawn was riven from end to end in great gashes, while the ornamental
Italian rail leading to the imposing entrance was a battered heap. But
the family, with a philosophy notable for the occasion, calmly set up
housekeeping on the sidewalk, the women seated in armchairs taken from the
mansion and wrapped in rugs and coverlets, the silver breakfast service was
laid out on the stone coping and their morning meal spread out on the
sidewalk. This, scene was repeated at other houses of the wealthy, the
families too fearful of another shock to venture within doors.
Another story of much interest in this connection is told.
On Friday afternoon, two days and some hours after the scene
just narrated, Mrs. Rudolph Spreckels presented her husband with an
heir on the lawn in front of their mansion, while the family were awaiting
the coming of the dynamite squad to blow up their magnificent
residence. An Irish woman who had been called in to play the part of
midwife at a birth elsewhere on Saturday, made a pertinent comment after the
wee one's eyes were opened to the walls of its tent home.
"God sends earthquakes and babies," she said, "but He might, in
His mercy, cut out sending them both together."
There were many pathetic incidents. Families had been
sadly separated in the confusion of the flight. Husbands had lost
their wives—wives had lost their husbands, and anxious mothers
sought some word of their children—the stories were very much the
same. One pretty looking woman in an expensive tailor-made costume
badly torn, had lost her little girl.
"I don't think anything has happened to her," said she, hopefully. "She
is almost eleven years old, and some one will be sure to take her in and care
for her; I only want to know where she is. That is all I care about
now."
A well-known young lady of good social position, when asked where she
had spent the night, replied: "On a grave."
"I thank God, I thank Uncle Sam and the people of this nation," said a
woman, clad in a red woolen wrapper, seated in front of a tent at the
Presidio nursing one child and feeding three others from a board propped on
two bricks. "We have lost our home and all we had, but we have never
been hungry nor without shelter."
The spirit of '49 was vital in many of the refugees. One
man wanted to know whether the fire had reached his home. He
was informed that there was not a house standing in that section of
the city. He shrugged his shoulders and whistled.
"There's lots of others in the same boat," as he turned away.
"Going to build?" repeated one man, who had lost family and home inside
of two hours. "Of course, I am. They tell me that the money in
the banks is still all right, and I have some insurance. Fifteen years ago I
began with these," showing his hands, "and I guess I'm game to do it over
again. Build again, well I wonder."
Among the many pathetic incidents of the disaster was that of a woman
who sat at the foot of Van Ness Avenue on the hot sands on the hillside
overlooking the bay east of Fort Mason, with four little children, the
youngest a girl of three, the eldest a boy of ten years. They were
destitute of water, food and money.
The woman had fled, with her children, from a home in flames in
the Mission Street district, and tramped to the bay in the hope
of sighting the ship which she said was about due, of which her husband
was the captain.
"He would know me anywhere," she said. And she would not
move, although a young fellow gallantly offered his tent, back on a vacant
lot, in which to shelter her children.
THE GOLDEN GATE CAMP.
In the Golden Gate Park there was the most woefully grotesque
camp of sufferers imaginable. There was no caste, no distinction
of rich and poor, social lines had been obliterated by the
common misfortune, and the late owners of property and wealth were glad
to camp by the side of the day laborer. As for shelter, there were
a few army tents and some others which afforded a fair degree of comfort,
but nine out of ten are the poorest suggestions of tents made out of
bedclothes, rugs, raincoats and in some cases of lace curtains. None of
the tents or huts has a floor, and it is impossible to see how a large number
of women and children can escape the most disastrous physical effects.
The unspeakable chaos that prevailed was apparent in no way more than in
the system, or lack of system, of registration and location. At the
entrance to Golden Gate Park stands a billboard, twenty feet high and a
hundred feet long. Originally it bore the praises of somebody's
beer. Covering this billboard, to a height of ten or twelve feet, were
slips of paper, business cards, letter heads and other notices, addressed to
"Those interested," "Friends and relatives," or to some individual, telling
of the whereabouts of refugees.
One notice read: "Mrs. Rogers will find her husband in Isidora Park,
Oakland. W. H. Rogers." Another style was this: "Sue, Harry and
Will Sollenberger all safe. Call at No. 250
Twenty-seventh Avenue."
There were thousands of these dramatic notices on this billboard, and
one larger than the others read: "Death notices can be left here; get as many
as possible."
Another method of finding friends and relatives was by printing notices
on vehicles. On the side curtains of a buggy being driven to Golden
Gate Park was the following sign: "I am looking for I. E. Hall."
That searchers for lost ones might have the least trouble, all
the tents, here known as camps, were tagged with the names or numbers. For
instance, one tent of bed quilts carried this sign: "No. 40 Bush Street
camp."
Most of the tents were merely named for the family name of
the occupants, the former streets number usually being given.
But these tent tags told a wonderful story of human nature. A
small army tent bore the name, "Camp Thankful," the one next to it
was placarded "Camp Glory" and a few feet farther on an Irishman
had posted the sign "Camp Hell."
The cooking was all done on a dozen bricks for a stove, with
such utensils as may usually be picked up in the ordinary
residential alley. But in all of the camps the badge of the eternal
feminine was to be found in the form of small pieces of broken mirrors,
or hand mirrors fastened to trees or tent walls, in some cases
the polished bottom of a tomato can serving the purposes of the feminine
toilet.
One woman, in whose improvised tent screeched a parrot, sat ministering
to the wounds of the other family pet, a badly singed cat. The number
of canaries, parrots, dogs and cats was one of the amusing features of the
disaster.
Among the interesting and thrilling incidents of the disaster is that
connected with the telegraph service. For many hours virtually all the
news from San Francisco came over the wires of the Postal Telegraph
Company. The Postal has about fifteen wires running into San
Francisco. They go under the bay in cables from Oakland, and thence run
underground for several blocks down Market Street to the Postal
building. About forty operators are employed to handle the business,
but evidently there was only about one on duty when the earthquake
began.
What became of him nobody knows. But he seems to have sent
the first word of the disaster. It came over the Postal wires
about nine o'clock, just when the day's business had started in the
East. It will long be preserved in the records of the company. This
was the dispatch:
"There was an earthquake hit us at 5.13 this morning, wrecking several
buildings and wrecking our offices. They are carting dead from the
fallen buildings. Fire all over town. There is no water and we
lost our power. I'm going to get out of office, as we have had a little
shake every few minutes, and it's me for the simple life."
"R., San Francisco, 5.50 A. M."
"Mr. R." evidently got out, for there was nothing doing for a
brief interval after that. The operator in the East pounded and
pounded at his key, but San Francisco was silent. The Postal people
were wondering if it was all the dream of some crazy operator or
a calamity, when the wire woke up again. It was the
superintendent of the San Francisco force this time.
"We're on the job, and are going to try and stick," was the way
the first message came from him.
This was what came over the wire a little later:
"Terrific earthquake occurred here at 5.13 this morning. A
number of people were killed in the city. None of the Postal people
were killed. They are now carting the dead from the fallen
buildings. There are many fires, with no one to fight them. Postal
building roof wrecked, but not entire building."
The fire got nearer and nearer to the Postal building. All of
the water mains had been destroyed around the building, the
operators said, and there was no hope if the fire came on. They also
said that they could hear the sound of dynamite blowing up buildings. All
this time the operators were sticking to their posts and sending and
receiving all the business the wires could stand. At 12.45 the wire
began to click again with a message for the little group of waiting
officials.
This message came in jerks: "Fire still coming up Market Street. It's
one block from the Post Office now; back of the Palace Hotel is a
furnace. I am afraid that the Grand Hotel and the Palace Hotel will get
it soon. The Southern Pacific offices on California Street are safe, so
far, but can't tell what will happen. California Street is on fire.
Almost everything east of Montgomery Street and north of Market Street is on
fire now."
There was a pause, then: "We are beginning to pack up
our instruments."
"Instruments are all packed up, and we are ready to run," was another
message. It was evident that just one instrument had been left
connected with the world outside. In about ten minutes it began to
click. Those who knew the telegraphers' language caught the word
"Good-bye," and then the ticks stopped.
At the end of an hour the instrument in the office began to
click again. It was from an electrician by the name of Swain.
"I'm back in the building, but they are dynamiting the building next
door, and I've got to get out," was the way his message was translated.
Dynamite ended the story, and the Postal's domicile in San Francisco ceased
to exist.
Facing Famine and Praying for Relief.
Frightful was the emergency of the vast host of fugitives who
fled in terror from the blazing city of San Francisco to the open gates of
Golden Gate Park and the military reservation of the Presidio. Food was
wanting, scarcely any water was to be had, death by hunger and thirst
threatened more than a quarter million of souls thus driven without warning
from their comfortable and happy homes and left without food or
shelter. Provisions, shelter tents, means of relief of various kinds
were being hurried forward in all haste, but for several days the host of
fugitives had no beds but the bare ground, no shelter but the open heavens,
scarcely a crumb of bread to eat, scarcely a gill of water to drink.
Those first days that followed the disaster were days of horror and
dread. Rich and poor were mingled together, the delicately reared with
the rough sons of toil to whom privation was no new experience.
Those who had food to sell sought to take advantage of the necessities
of the suffering by charging famine prices for their supplies, but the
soldiers put a quick stop to this. When Thursday morning broke, lines
of buyers formed before the stores whose supplies had not been
commandeered. In one of these, the first man was charged 75 cents for a
loaf of bread. The corporal in charge at that point brought his gun
down with a slam.
"Bread is 10 cents a loaf in this shop," he said.
It went. The soldier fixed the schedule of prices a little
higher than in ordinary times, and to make up for that he forced
the storekeeper to give free food to several hungry people in line who had
no money to pay. In several other places the soldiers used the same
brand of horse sense.
A man with a loaf of bread in his hand ran up to a policeman
on Washington Street. "Here," he said, "this man is trying to
charge me a dollar for this loaf of bread. Is that fair?"
"Give it to me," said the policeman. He broke off one end of
it and stuck it in his mouth. "I am hungry myself," he said when
he had his mouth clear. "Take the rest of it. It's
appropriated."
As an example of the prices charged for food and service by
the unscrupulous, we may quote the experience of a Los Angeles millionaire
named John Singleton, who had been staying a day or two at the Palace
Hotel. On Wednesday he had to pay $25 for an express wagon to carry
himself, his wife and her sister to the Casino, near Golden Gate Park, and on
Thursday was charged a dollar apiece for eggs and a dollar for a loaf of
bread. Others tell of having to pay $50 for a ride to the ferry.
One of the refugees on the shores of Lake Herced Thursday morning spied
a flock of ducks and swans which the city maintained there for the decoration
of the lake. He plunged into the lake, swam out to them and captured a
fat drake. Other men and boys saw the point and followed. The
municipal ducks were all cooking in five minutes.
The soldiers were prompt to take charge of the famine situation, acting
on their own responsibility in clearing out the supplies of the little
grocery stores left standing and distributing them among the people in
need. The principal food of those who remained in the city was composed
of canned goods and crackers. The refugees who succeeded in getting out
of San Francisco were met as soon as they entered the neighboring towns by
representatives of bakers who had made large supplies of bread, and who
immediately dealt them out to the hungry people.
THE FOOD QUESTION URGENT.
But the needs of the three hundred thousand homeless and
hungry people in the city could not be met in this way, and
immediate supplies in large quantities were necessary to prevent a reign
of famine from succeeding the ravages of the fire. Danger from
thirst was still more insistent than that from hunger. There was
some food to be had, bakeries were quickly built within the
military reservation there, and General Funston announced that rations
would soon reach the city and the people would be supplied from
the Presidio. But there was scarcely any water to relieve the
thirst of the suffering. Water became the incessant cry of firemen
and people alike, the one wanting it to fight the fire, the other
to drink, but even for the latter the supply was very scant.
There was water in plenty in the reservoirs, but they were distant
and difficult to reach, and all night of the day succeeding the
earth shock wagons mounted with barrels and guarded by soldiers
drove through the park doling out water. There was a steady crush
around these wagons, but only one drink was allowed to a person.
Toward midnight a black, staggering body of men began to weave through
the entrance. They were volunteer fire-fighters, looking for a place to
throw themselves down and sleep. These men dropped out all along the
line, and were rolled out of the driveways by the troops. There was
much splendid unselfishness here. Women gave up their blankets and sat
up or walked about all night to cover the exhausted men who had fought fire
until there was no more fight in them.
The common destitution and suffering had, as we have said, wiped out all
social, financial and racial distinctions. The man who last Tuesday was
a prosperous merchant was obliged to occupy with his family a little plot of
ground that adjoined the open-air home of a laborer. The white man of
California forgot his antipathy to the Asiatic race, and maintained friendly
relations with his new Chinese and Japanese neighbors. The society
belle who Tuesday night was a butterfly of fashion at the grand opera
performance now assisted some factory girl in the preparation of humble
daily meals. Money had little value. The family that had had
foresight to lay in the largest stock of foodstuffs on the first day
of disaster was rated highest in the scale of wealth.
A few of the families that could secure wagons were possessors of cook
stoves, but over 95 percent of the refugees did their cooking on little
campfires made of brick or stone. Battered kitchen utensils that the
week before would have been regarded as useless had become articles of high
value. In fact, man had come back to nature and all lines of caste had
been obliterated, while the very thought of luxury had disappeared. It
was, in the exigency of the moment, considered good fortune to have a
scant supply of the barest necessaries of life.
As for clothing, it was in many cases of the scantiest, while numbers of
the people had brought comfortable clothing and bedding. Many others had fled
in their night garbs, and comparatively few of these had had the
self-possession to return and don their daytime clothes. As a result
there had been much improvisation of garments suitable for life in the open
air, and as the days went on many of the women arrayed themselves in
home-made bloomer costumes, a sensible innovation under the circumstances and
in view of the active outdoor work they were obliged to perform.
The grave question to be faced at this early stage was: How soon would
an adequate supply of food arrive from outside points to avert famine?
Little remained in San Francisco beyond the area swept by the fire, and the
available supply could not last more than a few days. Fresh meat
disappeared early on Wednesday and only canned foods and breadstuffs were
left. All the foodstuffs coming in on the cars were at once seized by
order of the Mayor and added to the scanty supply, the names of the
consignees being taken that this material might eventually be paid for.
The bakers agreed to work their plants to their utmost capacity and to send
all their surplus output to the relief committee. By working night and
day thousands of loaves could be provided daily. A big bakery in
the saved district started its ovens and arranged to bake 50,000
loaves before night. The provisions were taken charge of by a
committee and sent to the various depots from which the people were
being fed. Instructions were issued by Mayor Schmitz on Thursday
to break open every store containing provisions and to distribute them to
the thousands under police supervision. A policeman reported that two
grocery stores in the neighborhood were closed, although the clerks were
present. "Smash the stores open," ordered the Mayor, "and guard
them." In towns across the bay the master bakers have met and fixed the
price of bread at 5 cents the loaf, with the understanding that they will
refuse to sell to retailers who attempt to charge famine prices. The
committee of citizens in charge of the situation in the stricken city
proposed to use every effort to keep food down to the ordinary price and
check the efforts of speculators, who in one instance charged as much
as $3.50 for two loaves of bread and a can of sardines. Orders
were issued by the War Department to army officers to purchase at
Los Angeles immediately 200,000 rations and at Seattle 300,000 rations and
hurry them to San Francisco. The department was informed that there
were 120,000 rations at the Presidio, that thousands of refugees were being
sheltered there and that the army was feeding them. One million rations
already had been started to San Francisco by the department. But in
view of the fact that there were 300,000 fugitives to be fed the supply
available was likely to be soon exhausted.
FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY.
Such was the state of affairs at the end of the second day of
the great disaster. But meanwhile the entire country had been
aroused by the tidings of the awful calamity, the sympathetic instinct
of Americans everywhere was awakened, and it was quickly made evident that
the people of the stricken city would not be allowed to suffer for the
necessaries of life. On all sides money was contributed in large sums,
the United States Government setting the example by an immediate
appropriation of $1,000,000, and in the briefest possible interval relief
trains were speeding toward the stricken city from all quarters, carrying
supplies of food, shelter tents and other necessaries of a kind that could
not await deliberate action.
Shelter was needed almost as badly as food, for a host of the refugees
had nothing but their thin clothing to cover them, and, though the weather at
first was fine and mild, a storm might come at any time. In fact, a
rain did come, a severe one, early in the week after the disaster, pouring
nearly all night long on the shivering campers in the parks, wetting them to
the skin and soaking through the rudely improvised shelters which many of
the refugees had put up. A few days afterward came a second
shower, rendering still more evident the need of haste in
providing suitable shelter.
All this was foreseen by those in charge, and the most strenuous efforts
were made to provide the absolute necessities of life. Huge quantities of
supplies were poured into the city. From all parts of California
trainloads of food were rushed there in all haste. A steamer from the
Orient laden with food reached the city in its hour of need; another was
dispatched in all haste from Tacoma bearing $25,000 worth of food and medical
supplies, ordered by Mayor Weaver, of Philadelphia, as a first installment of
that city's contribution. Money was telegraphed from all quarters
to the Governor of California, to be expended for food and other supplies,
and so prompt was the response to the insistent demand that by Saturday all
danger of famine was at an end; the people were being fed.
WATER FOR THE THIRSTY.
The broken waterpipes were also repaired with all possible
haste, the Spring Valley Water Company putting about one thousand men
at work upon their shattered mains, and in a very brief time water began
to flow freely in many parts of the residence section and the great
difficulty of obtaining food and water was practically at an end. Never
in the history of the country has there been a more rapid and complete
demonstration of the resourcefulness of Americans than in the way this
frightful disaster was met.
Food, water and shelter were not the only urgent needs. At
first there was absolutely no sanitary provision, and the danger of
an epidemic was great. This was a peril which the Board of
Health addressed itself vigorously to meet, and steps for improving
the sanitary conditions were hastily taken. Quick provision
for sheltering the unfortunates was also made. Eight
temporary structures, 150 feet in length by 28 feet wide and 13 feet
high, were erected in Golden Gate Park, and in these sheds thousands found
reasonably comfortable quarters. This was but a beginning. More of
these buildings were rapidly erected, and by their aid the question of
shelter was in part solved. The buildings were divided into
compartments large enough to house a family, each compartment having an
entrance from the outside. This work was done under the control of the
engineering department of the United States army, which had taken steps to
obtain a full supply of lumber and had put 135 carpenters to work.
Those of the refugees who were without tents were the first to be provided
for in these temporary buildings.
THE CAMPS IN THE PARKS.
To those who made an inspection of the situation a few days
after the earthquake, the hills and beaches of San Francisco looked
like an immense tented city. For miles through the park and along
the beaches from Ingleside to the sea wall at North Beach the
homeless were camped in tents—makeshifts rigged up from a few sticks
of wood and a blanket or sheet. Some few of the more
fortunate secured vehicles on which they loaded regulation tents and
were, therefore, more comfortably housed than the great majority.
Golden Gate Park and the Panhandle looked like one vast campaign
ground. It is said that fully 100,000 persons, rich and poor alike,
sought refuge in Golden Gate Park alone, and 200,000 more homeless
ones located at the other places of refuge.
At the Presidio military reservation, where probably 50,000 persons were
camped, affairs were conducted with military precision. Water was
plentiful and rations were dealt out all day long. The refugees stood
patiently in line and there was not a murmur. This characteristic was
observable all over the city. The people were brave and patient, and
the wonderful order preserved by them proved of great assistance. In
Golden Gate Park a huge supply station had been established and provisions
were dealt out.
Six hundred men from the Ocean Shore Railway arrived on Saturday night
with wagons and implements to work on the sewer system. Inspectors were kept
going from house to house, examining chimneys and issuing permits to build
fires. In fact, activity manifested itself in all quarters in the
attempt to bring order out of confusion, and in an astonishingly short time
the tented city was converted from a scene of wretched disorder into one of
order and system.
At Jefferson Park were camped thousands of people of every class
in life. On the western edge of this park is the old Scott
house, where Mrs. McKinley lay sick for two weeks in 1901. Three times
a day the people all gathered in line before the provision wagons
for their little handouts. "Yesterday," says an observer, "I saw,
in order before the wagons, a Lascar sailor in his turban, about as low a
Chinatown bum as I ever set eyes on, a woman of refined appearance, a
barefooted child, two Chinamen, and a pretty girl. They were squeezed up
together by the line, which extended for a quarter of a mile. It is
civilization in the bare bones.
"The great and rich are on a level with the poor in the struggle for
bare existence, and over them all is the perfect, unbroken discipline of the
soldiery. They came into the city and took charge on an hour's notice,
they saved the city from itself in the three days of hell, and but for them
the city, even with enough provisions to feed them in the stores and
warehouses, must have gone hungry for lack of distributive
organization."
COMEDY AND PATHOS IN THE BREAD LINE.
At one of the parks on Tuesday morning a handsomely dressed
woman with two children at her skirts stood in a line of many
hundreds where supplies were being given out. She took some uncooked
bacon, and as she reached for it jewels sparkled on her fingers. One
of the tots took a can of condensed milk, the other a bag of cakes.
"I have money," she said, "'if I could get it and use it. I
have property, if I could realize on it. I have friends, if I could
get to them. Meantime I am going to cook this piece of bacon on
bricks and be happy."
She was only one of thousands like her.
In a walk through the city this note of cheerfulness of the people in
the face of an almost incredible week of horror was to a correspondent the
mitigating element to the awfulness of disaster.
In the streets of the residential district in the western
addition, which the fire did not reach, women of the houses were
cooking meals on the pavement. In most cases they had moved out the
family ranges, and were preparing the food which they had secured from
the Relief Committee.
Out on Broderick street, near the Panhandle, a piano sounded.
It was nigh ten o'clock and the stars were shining after the rain. Fires
gleamed up and down through the shrubbery and the refugees sat huddled
together about the flames, with their blankets about their heads,
Apache-like, in an effort to dry out after the wetting of the
afternoon. The piano, dripping with moisture, stood on the curb, near
the front of a cottage which had been wrecked by the earthquake.
A youth with a shock of red hair sat on a cracker box and pecked at the
ivories. "Home Ain't Nothing Like This" was thrummed from the rusting
wires with true vaudeville dash and syncopation. "Bill Bailey," "Good
Old Summer Time," "Dixie" and "In Toyland" followed. Three young men with
handkerchiefs wrapped about their throats in lieu of collars stood near the
pianist and with him lifted up their voices in melody. The harmony was
execrable, the time without excuse, but the songs ran through the trees of
the Panhandle, and the crows, forgetting their misery for a time, joined the
strange chorus.
The people had their tales of comedy, one being that on the morning of
the fire a richly dressed woman who lived in one of the aristocratic Sutter
Street apartments came hurrying down the street, faultlessly gowned as to
silks and sables, save that one dainty foot was shod with a high-heeled
French slipper and the other was incased in a laborer's brogan. They
say that as she walked she careened like a bark-rigged ship before a
typhoon.
An hour spent behind the counter of the food supply depot in the park
tennis court yielded rich reward to the seeker after the outlandish.
The tennis court was piled high with the plunder of several grocery stores
and the cargoes of many relief cars. A square cut in the wire screen
permitted of the insertion of a counter, behind which stood members of the
militia acting as food dispensers. Before the improvised window passed
the line of refugees, a line which stretched back fully 300 yards to
Speedway track.
"I want a can of condensed cream, so I can feed my baby and my dog,"
said a large, florid-faced woman in a gaudy kimono, "and I don't care for
crackers, but you can throw in some potted chicken if you have it."
"What's in that bottle over there?" queried the next applicant. "Tomato
ketchup? Well, of all the luck! Say, young man, just give me
three."
A little gray-haired woman in an India shawl peered timorously through
the window. "Just a little bit of anything you may have handy, please,"
she whispered, and she cast a careful eye about to see of any of her
neighbors had recognized her standing there in the "bread line."
"Yesterday, at the Western Union office," says one writer, "I saw
a woman drive up in a large motor car and beg that the telegram on which a
boy had asked a delivery fee of twenty-five cents be handed to her. She
said she had not a penny and did not know when she would have any money, but
that as soon as she had any she would pay for the message. It was given
to her, and the manager told me that there were hundreds of similar
cases."
Many weddings resulted from the disaster. Women driven out
of their homes and left destitute, appealed to the men to whom they were
engaged, and immediate marriages took place. After the first day of the
disaster an increase in the marriage licenses issued was noticed by County
Clerk Cook. This increase grew until seven marriage licenses were
issued in an hour.
"I don't live anywhere," was the answer given in many cases when the
applicant for a license was asked the locality of his residence. "I
used to live in San Francisco."
Births seem to have been about as common as marriages, in one night five
children being born in Golden Gate Park. In Buena Vista Park eight
births were recorded and others elsewhere, the population being thus
increased at a rate hardly in accordance with the exigencies of the
situation.
THE EXODUS FROM SAN FRANCISCO.
We have spoken only of the camps of refugees within the
municipal limits of San Francisco. But in addition to these was
the multitude of fugitives who made all haste to escape from that
city. This was with the full consent of the authorities, who felt
that every one gone lessened the immediate weight upon themselves, and who
issued a strict edict that those who went must stay, that there could be no
return until a counter edict should be made public.
From the start this was one of the features of the situation.
Down Market Street, once San Francisco's pride, now leading through piles
of tottering walls, piles of still hot bricks and twisted iron and heaps of
smouldering debris, poured a huge stream of pedestrians. Men bending
under the weight of great bundles pushed baby carriages loaded with
bric-a-brac and children. Women toiled along with their arms full, but
a large proportion were able to ride, for the relief corps had been
thoroughly organized and wagons were being pressed into service from all
sides.
In constant procession they moved toward the ferry, whence the Southern
Pacific was transporting them with baggage free wherever they wished to
go. Automobiles meanwhile shot in all directions, carrying the Red
Cross flag and usually with a soldier carrying a rifle in the front
seat. They had the right of way everywhere, carrying messages and
transporting the ill to temporary hospitals and bearing succor to those in
distress.
Oakland, the nearest place of resort, on the bay shore opposite
San Francisco, soon became a great city of refuge, fugitives
gathering there until 50,000 or more were sheltered within its
charitable limits. Having suffered very slightly from the earthquake
that had wrecked the great city across the bay, it was in condition to
offer shelter to the unfortunate. All day Wednesday and Thursday
a stream of humanity poured from the ferries, every one carrying personal
baggage and articles saved from the conflagration. Hundreds of Chinese men,
women and children, all carrying baggage to the limit of their strength, made
their way into the limited Chinatown of Oakland.
Multitudes of persons besieged the telegraph offices, and the
crush became so great that soldiers were stationed at the doors to
keep them in line and allow as many as possible to find standing room
at the counters. Messages were stacked yards high in the
offices waiting to be sent throughout the world. Every boat from
San Francisco brought hundreds of refugees, carrying luggage and bedding
in large quantities. Many women were bareheaded and all showed fatigue
as the result of sleeplessness and exposure to the chill air. Hundreds
of these persons lined the streets of Oakland, waiting for some one to
provide them with shelter, for which the utmost possible provision was
quickly made. No one was allowed to go hungry in Oakland and few lacked
shelter. At the Oakland First Presbyterian Church 1,800 were fed and
1,000 people were provided with sleeping accommodations. Pews were
turned into beds. Cots stood in the aisles, in the gallery and in the
Sunday school room. Every available inch of space was occupied by some
substitute for a bed.
As the days wore on the number of refugees somewhat decreased. Although
they still came in large numbers, many left on every train for different
points. Requests for free transportation were investigated as closely
as possible and all the deserving were sent away. Women and children
and married men who wished to join their families in different parts of the
State were given preference. The transportation bureau was on a street
corner, where a man stood on a box and called the names of those entitled to
passes.
Along the principal streets of Oakland there was a
picturesque pilgrimage of former householders, who dragged or carried
the meagre effects they had been able to save. The refugees who
could not be cared for in Oakland made an exodus to Berkeley and
other surrounding cities, where relief committees were actively at
work. Utter despair was pictured on many faces, which showed the
effects of sleepless days and nights, and the want of proper food.
Oakland was only one of the outside camps of refuge. At
Berkeley over 6,000 refugees sought quarters, the big gymnasium of the
State University being turned into a lodging house, while hundreds
were provided with blankets to sleep in the open air under the University
oaks. The students and professors of the University did all they could
for their relief, and the Citizens' Relief Committee supplied them with
food.
The same benevolent sympathy was manifested at all the places near the
ruined city which had escaped disaster, this aid materially reducing that
needed within San Francisco itself.
WORSHIP IN THE OPEN AIR.
Sunday dawned in San Francisco; Sunday in the camp of the
refugees. On a green knoll in Golden Gate Park, between the conservatory
and the tennis courts, a white-haired minister of the Gospel gathered his
flock. It was the Sabbath day and in the turmoil and confusion the
minister did not forget his duty. Two upright stakes and a cross-piece
gave him a rude pulpit, and beside him stood a young man with a battered
brass cornet. Far over the park stole a melody that drew hundreds of
men and women from their tents. Of all denominations and all creeds,
they gathered on that green knoll, and the men uncovered while the solemn
voice repeated the words of a grand old hymn, known wherever men and women
meet to worship the Lord:
"Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave,
oh, leave me not alone, still support and comfort me!"
A moment before there had been shouting and confusion in
the driveway where some red-striped artillerymen were herding a squad of
gesticulating Chinamen as men herd sheep. The shouting died away as the
minister's voice rose and fell and out of the stillness came the sobs of
women. One little woman in blue was making no sound, but the tears were
streaming down her cheeks. Her husband, a sturdy young fellow in his
shirt sleeves, put his arm about her shoulders and tried to comfort her as
the reading went on.
"All my trust on Thee is stayed; all my help from Thee I
bring; Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of Thy wing."
Then the cornet took up the air again and those helpless
persons followed it in quivering tones, the white-haired man of God
leading them with closed eyes. When the last verse was over, the
minister raised his hands.
"Let us pray," said he, and his congregation sank down in the
grass before him. It was a simple prayer, such a prayer as might
be offered by a man without a home or a shelter over his head—and nothing
left to him but an unshaken faith in his Creator.
"Oh, Lord, Thy ways are past finding out, but we still have faith in
Thee. We know not why Thou hast visited these people and left them
homeless. Thou knowest the reason of this desolation and of our utter
helplessness. We call on Thee for help in the hour of our great
need. Bless the people of this city, the sorrowing ones, the bereaved,
gather them under Thy mighty wing and soothe aching hearts this day."
The women were crying again, and one big man dug his knuckles into his
eyes without shame. The man who could have listened to such a prayer
unmoved was not in Golden Gate Park that day.
The Frightful Loss of Life and Wealth.
While multitudes escaped from toppling buildings and crashing
walls in the dread disaster of that fatal Wednesday morning of April
18th in San Francisco, hundreds of the less fortunate met their death
in the ruins, and horrifying scenes were witnessed by the survivors. Many
of those who escaped had tales of terror to tell. Mr. J. P. Anthony, as
he fled from the Ramona Hotel, saw a score or more of people crushed to
death, and as he walked the streets at a later hour saw bodies of the dead
being carried in garbage wagons and all kinds of vehicles to the improvised
morgues, while hospitals and storerooms were already filled with the
injured. Mr. G. A. Raymond, of Tomales, Cal., gives evidence to the
same effect. As he rushed into the street, he says that the air was
filled with falling stones and people around him were crushed to death on
all sides.
Others gave testimony to the same effect. Samuel Wolf, of
Salt Lake City, tells us that he saved one woman from death in
the hotel. She was rushing blindly toward an open window, from
which she would have fallen fifty feet to the stone pavement below.
"On my way down Market Street," he says, "the whole side of a
building fell out and came so near me that I was covered and blinded by
the dust. Then I saw the first dead come by. They were piled up
in an automobile like carcasses in a butcher's wagon, all bloody,
with crushed skulls, broken limbs and bloody faces."
These are frightful stories, exaggerated probably from the
nervous excitement of those terrible moments, as are also the
following statements, which form part of the early accounts of the
disaster. Thus we are told that "from a three-story lodging house at
Fifth and Minna Streets, which collapsed Wednesday morning, more
than seventy-five bodies were taken today. There are fifty
other bodies in sight in the ruins. This building was one of the
first to take fire on Fifth Street. At least 100 persons are said
to have been killed in the Cosmopolitan, on Fourth Street. More
than 150 persons are reported dead in the Brunswick Hotel, at Seventh and
Mission Streets."
Another statement is to the effect that "at Seventh and Howard Streets a
great lodging house took fire after the first shock, before the guests had
escaped. There were few exits and nearly all the lodgers
perished. Mrs. J. J. Munson, one of those in the building, leaped
with her child in her arms from the second floor to the pavement below and
escaped unhurt. She says she was the only one who escaped from the
house. Such horrors as this were repeated at many points. B.
Baker was killed while trying to get a body from the ruins. Other
rescuers heard the pitiful wail of a little child, but were unable to get
near the point from which the cry issued. Soon the onrushing fire ended
the cry and the men turned to other tasks."
ESTIMATES OF THE DEATH LIST.
The questionable point in those statements is that the numbers
of dead spoken of in these few instances exceed the whole number given in
the official records issued two weeks after the disaster. Yet they go
to illustrate the actual horrors of the case, and are of importance for this
reason. As regards the whole number killed, in fact, there is not, and
probably never will be, a full and accurate statement. While about 350
bodies had been recovered at the end of the second week, it was impossible to
estimate how many lay buried under the ruins, to be discovered only as the
work of excavation went on, and how many more had been utterly consumed by
the flames, leaving no trace of their existence. The estimates of the
probable loss of life ran up to 1,500 and more, while the injured were
very numerous.
The shock of the earthquake, the pulse of deep horror to which it gave
rise, the first wild impulse to flee for life, gave way in the minds of many
to a feeling of intense sympathy as agonized cries came from those pinned
down to the ruins of buildings or felled by falling bricks or stones, and as
the sight of dead bodies incrimsoned with blood met the eyes of the survivors
in the streets. From wandering aimlessly about, many of these
went earnestly to work to rescue the wounded and recover the bodies of the
slain. In this merciful work the police and the soldiers lent their
aid, and soon there was a large corps of rescuers actively engaged.
BURYING THE DEAD.
Soon numbers were taken, alive or dead, from the ruins,
passing vehicles were pressed into the service, and the labor of mercy
went on rapidly, several buildings being quickly converted into temporary
hospitals, while the dead were conveyed to the Mechanics' Pavilion and other
available places. Portsmouth Square became for a time a public
morgue. Between twenty and thirty corpses were laid side by side upon
the trodden grass in the absence of more suitable accommodations. It is
said that when the flames threatened to reach the square, the dead, mostly
unknown, were removed to Columbia Square, where they were buried when
danger threatened that quarter. Others were taken to the Presidio,
and here the soldiers pressed into service all men who came near
and forced them to labor at burying the dead, a temporary cemetery being
opened there. So thick were the corpses piled up that they were
becoming a menace, and early in the day the order was issued to bury them at
any cost. The soldiers were needed for other work, so, at the point of
rifles, the citizens were compelled to take to the work of burying.
Some objected at first, but the troops stood no trifling, and every man who
came within reach was forced to work. Rich men, unused to physical
exertion, labored by the side of the workingmen digging trenches in which to
bury the dead. The able-bodied being engaged in fighting the flames,
General Funston ordered that the old men and the weaklings should take the
work in hand. They did it willingly enough, but had they refused
the troops on guard would have forced them. It was ruled that
every man physically capable of handling a spade or a pick should dig
for an hour. When the first shallow graves were ready the men,
under the direction of the troops, lowered the bodies, several in a grave,
and a strange burial began. The women gathered about crying. Many
of them knelt while a Catholic priest read the burial service and pronounced
absolution. All Thursday afternoon this went on.
In this connection the following stories are told:
Dr. George V. Schramm, a young medical graduate, said:
"As I was passing down Market Street with a new-found friend,
an automobile came rushing along with two soldiers in it. My
doctor's badge protected me, but the soldiers invited my companion, a
husky six-footer, to get into the automobile. He said:
"'I don't want to ride, and have plenty of business to attend to.'
"Once more they invited him, and he refused. One of the
soldiers pointed a gun at him and said:
"'We need such men as you to save women and children and to help fight
the fire.'
"The man was on his way to find his sister, but he yielded to
the inevitable. He worked all day with the soldiers, and when
released to get lunch he felt that he could conscientiously desert to go
and find his own loved ones."
"Half a block down the street the soldiers were stopping all pedestrians
without the official pass which showed that they were on relief business, and
putting them to work heaving bricks off the pavement. Two dapper men
with canes, the only clean people I saw, were caught at the corner by a
sergeant, who showed great joy as he said:
"'I give you time to git off those kid gloves, and then hustle, damn
you, hustle!' The soldiers took delight in picking out the best dressed
men and keeping them at the brick piles for long terms. I passed them
in the shelter of a provision wagon, afraid that even my pass would not save
me. Two men are reported shot because they refused to turn in and
help."
Many of the dead, of course, will never be identified, though the names
were taken of all who were known and descriptions written of the
others. A story comes to us of one young girl who had followed for two
days the body of her father, her only relative. It had been taken from
a house on Mission Street to an undertaker's shop just after the quake.
The fire drove her out with her charge, and it was placed in Mechanics'
Pavilion. That went, and the body rested for a day at the Presidio,
waiting burial. With many others, she wept on the border of the burned
area, while the women cared for her.
VICTIMS TAKEN FROM THE RUINS.
On Friday eleven postal clerks, all alive, were taken from
the debris of the Post Office. All at first were thought to be
dead, but it was found that, although they were buried under the stone and
timber, every one was alive. They had been for three days without food
or water.
Two theatrical people were in a hotel in Santa Rosa when the
shock came. The room was on the fourth floor. The roof
collapsed. One of them was thrown from the bed and both were caught by
the descending timbers and pinned helplessly beneath the debris.
They could speak to each other and could touch one another's hands,
but the weight was so great that they could do nothing to
liberate themselves. After three hours rescuers came, cut a hole in
the roof and both were released uninjured.
Even the docks were converted into hospitals in the stringent exigency
of the occasion, about 100 patients being stretched on Folsom street dock at
one time. In the evening tugs conveyed them to Goat Island, where they
were lodged in the hospital. The docks from Howard Street to Folsom
Street had been saved, the fire at this point not being permitted to creep
farther east than Main Street. Another series of fatalities occurred,
caused by the stampeding of a herd of cattle at Sixth and Folsom
Streets. Three hundred of the panic-stricken animals ran amuck when
they saw and felt the flames and charged wildly down the street, trampling
under foot all who were in the way. One man was gored through
and through by a maddened bull. At least a dozen persons', it is
said, were killed, though probably this is an overestimate. One
observer tells us that "the first sight I saw was a man with blood
streaming from his wounds, carrying a dead woman in his arms. He placed
the body on the floor of the court at the Palace Hotel, and then told me
he was the janitor of a big building. The first he knew of
the catastrophe he found himself in the basement, his dead wife
beside him. The building had simply split in two, and thrown them
down."
In the camps of refuge the deaths came frequently. Physicians
were everywhere in evidence, but, without medicine or instruments,
were fearfully handicapped. Men staggered in from their
herculean efforts at the fire lines, only to fall gasping on the
grass. There was nothing to be done. Injured lay groaning. Tender
hands were willing, but of water there was none. "Water, water,
for God's sake get me some water," was the cry that struck into thousands
of souls of San Francisco.
The list of dead was not confined to San Francisco, but extended to many
of the neighboring towns, especially to Santa Rosa, where sixty were reported
dead and a large number missing, and to the insane asylum in its vicinity,
from the ruins of which a hundred or more of dead bodies were taken.
THE FREE USE OF RIFLES.
A citizen tells us that "in the early part of the evening, and while
the twilight lasts, there is a good deal of trafficking up and down the
sidewalks. Having finished their dinners of government provisions,
cooked on the street or in the parks, the people promenade for half an hour
or so. By half-past eight the town is closed tight. A rat
scurrying in the street will bring a soldier's rifle to his shoulder.
Any one not wearing a uniform or a Red Cross badge is a suspicious character
and may be shot unless he halts at command. Even the men in uniform do
well to stop still, for it is hard to tell a uniform in the half
light thrown up by the burning town and the great shadows.
"Last night two of us ventured out on Van Ness Avenue a little
late. There came up the noise of some kind of a shooting scrape far
down the street. We hurried in that direction to see what was
doing. An eighteen-year-old boy in a uniform barred the way, levelled
his rifle and said in a peremptory way:
"'Go home.'
"We took a course down the block, where an older soldier,
more communicative but equally peremptory, informed us that we
were trifling with our lives, news or no news.
"'We've shot about 300 people for one thing or another,' he said. 'Now,
dodge trouble. Git!' That ended the expedition."
THE LOSS IN WEALTH.
If we pass now from the record of the loss of lives to that of
the destruction of wealth, the estimates exceed by far any fire
losses recorded in history.
The truth is that when flames eat out the heart of a great city, devour
its vast business establishments, storehouses and warehouses, sweep through
its centres of opulence, destroy its wharves with their accumulation of
goods, spread ruin and havoc everywhere, it is impossible at first to
estimate the loss. Only gradually, as time goes on, is the true loss
discovered, and never perhaps very accurately, since the owners and the records of riches often disappear
with the wealth itself. In regard to San Francisco, the early estimate
was that three-fourths of the city, valued at $500,000,000, was
destroyed.
But early estimates are apt to be exaggerated, and on Friday, two days
after the disaster, we find this estimate reduced to $250,000,000. A
few more days passed and these figures shrunk still further, though it was
still largely conjectural, the means of making a trustworthy estimate being
very restricted. Later on the pendulum swung upward again, and two weeks after the fire the closest estimates
that could be made fixed the property loss at close to $350,000,000, or
double that of the Chicago fire. But as the actual loss in the latter
case proved considerably below the early estimates, the same may prove to be
the case with San Francisco.
Special personal losses were in many cases great. Thus the
Palace Hotel was built at a cost of $6,000,000, and the St. Francis,
which originally cost $4,000,000, was being enlarged at great
expense. Several of the great mansions on Nob's Hill cost a million or
more, the City Hall was built at a cost of $7,000,000, the new Post Office
was injured to the extent of half a million, while a large number of other
buildings might be named whose value, with their contents, was measured in
the millions.
It was not until May 3d that news came over the wires of another serious
item of loss. The merchants had waited until then for their fire-proof
safes and vaults to cool off before attempting to open them. When this
was at length done the results proved disheartening. Out of 576 vaults
and safes opened in the district east of Powell and north of Market Street,
where the flames had raged with the greatest fury, it was found that fully
forty percent had not performed their duty. When opened they were
found to contain nothing but heaps of ashes. The valuable account
books, papers and in some cases large sums of money had vanished, the
loss of the accounts being a severe calamity in a business sense.
As all the banks were equipped with the best fire-proof vaults, no fear
was felt for the safety of their contents.
LOOTERS IN CHINATOWN.
Chinatown suffered severely, the merchants of that
locality possessing large stocks of valuable goods, many of which
were looted by seemingly respectable sightseers after the ruins had cooled
off, bronze, porcelain and other valuable goods being taken from the
ruins. One example consisted in a mass of gold and silver valued at
$2,500, which had been melted by the fire in the store of Tai Sing, a Chinese
merchant. This was found by the police on May 3d in a place where it
had been hidden by looters.
But with all its losses San Francisco does not despair. The
spirit of its citizens is heroic, and there are some hopeful signs in
the air. The insurances due are estimated to approximate
$175,000,000, and there are other moneys likely to be spent on building
during the coming year, making a total of over $200,000,000.
Eastern capitalists also talk of investing $100,000,000 of new capital
in the rebuilding of the city, while the San Francisco authorities have a
project of issuing $200,000,000 of municipal bonds, the payment to be
guaranteed by the United States Government. Thus, two weeks after the
earthquake, daylight was already showing strongly ahead and hope was fast
beginning to replace despair.
Wonderful Record of Thrilling Escapes.
Shuddering under the memories of what seems more like a
nightmare than actual reality to the survivors of this frightful
calamity, they have tried to picture in words far from adequate the days
of terror and the nights of horror that fell to the lot of the people of
the Golden Gate city and their guests.
They recount the roar of falling structures and the groans and pitiful
cries of those pinned beneath the timbers of collapsing buildings. They
speak of their climbing over dead bodies heaped in the streets, and of
following tortuous ways to find the only avenue of escape—the ferry, where
men and women fought like infuriated animals, bent on escape from a fiery
furnace.
These refugees tell of the great caravan composed of homeless persons in
its wild flight to the hills for safety, and in that great procession women,
harnessed to vehicles, trudging along and tugging at the shafts, hauling all
that was left of their earthly belongings, and a little food that foresight
told them would be necessary to stay the pangs of hunger in the hours of
misery that must follow.
We give below an especially accurate picture from the description of the
well-known writer, Jane Tingley, who, an eye-witness of it all, did so much
to help the sufferers, and who, with all the unselfishness of true American
womanhood, sacrificed her own comfort and needs for those of others.
"May God be merciful to the women and children in this land
of desolation and despair!" she wrote on April 21st.
"Men have done, are doing such deeds of sublime self-sacrifice,
of magnificent heroism, that deserve to make the title of American manhood
immortal in the pages of history. The rest lies with
the Almighty.
"I spent all of last night and today in that horror city across the
bay. I went from this unharmed city of plenty, blooming with abounding
health, thronged with happy mothers and joyous children, and spent hours
among the blackened ruins and out on the windswept slopes of the sand hills
by the sea, and I heard the voice of Rachel weeping for her children in the
wilderness and mourning because she found them not.
"I climbed to the top of Strawberry Hill, in Golden Gate Park, and saw a
woman, half naked, almost starving, her hair dishevelled and an unnatural
lustre in her eyes, her gaze fixed upon the waters in the distance, and her
voice repeating over and over again: 'Here I am, my pretties; come here, come
here.'
"I took her by the hand and led her down to the grass at the foot of the
hill. A man—her husband—received her from me and wept as he said:
'She is calling our three little children. She thinks the sounds of the
ocean waves are the voices of our lost darlings.'
"Ever since they became separated from their children in that
first terrific onrush of the multitude when the fire swept along
Mission Street these two had been tramping over the hills and parks
without food or rest, searching for their little ones. To all whom
they have met they have addressed the same pitiful question: 'Have
you seen anything of our lost babies?' They will not know what
has become of them until order has been brought out of chaos; until
the registration headquarters of the military authorities has secured the
names of all who are among the straggling wanderers around the camps of the
homeless. Perhaps then it will be found that these children are in a
trench among the corpses of the weaklings who have succumbed to the frightful
rigors of the last three days.
"Last night a soldier seized me by the arm and cried: 'If you are
a woman with a woman's heart, go in there and do whatever you can.'
"'In there' meant behind a barricade of brush, covered with a blanket
that had been hastily thrown together to form a rude shelter. I went in
and saw one of my own sex lying on the bare grass naked, her clothing torn to
shreds; scattered over the green beside her. She was moaning pitifully,
and it needed no words to tell a woman what the matter was, I bade my man
escort to find a doctor, or at least send more women at once. He ran
off and soon two sympathetic ladies hastened into the shelter. In an
hour my escort returned with a young medical student. Under the
best ministrations we could find, a new life was ushered into this
hell, which, a few hours before, was the fairest among cities.
"'There have been many such cases,' said the medical student. "Many of
the mothers have died—few of the babies have lived. I, personally,
know of nine babies that have been born in the park to- day. There must
have been many others here, among the sand hills, and at the Presidio."
"Think of it, you happy women who have become mothers in comfortable
homes, attended with every care that loving hands can bestow. Think of
the dreadful plight of these poor members of your sex. The very thought
of it is enough to make the hearts of women burst with pity.
"today I walked among the people crowded on the Panhandle. Opposite the
Lyon Street entrance, on the north side, I saw a young woman sitting
tailor-fashion in the roadway, which, in happier days, was the carriage
boulevard. She held a dishpan and was looking at her reflection in the
polished bottom, while another girl was arranging her hair. I
recognized a young wife, whose marriage to a prominent young lawyer eight
months ago was a gala event among that little handful of people who clung to
the old-time fashionable district of Valencia Street, like the Phelan and
Dent families, and refused to move from that aristocratic section when the
new-made, millionaires began to build their palaces on Nob Hill and Pacific
Heights. I spoke to the young woman about the disadvantages of making
her toilet under such untoward circumstances.
"'Ah, Julia, dear, you must stay to luncheon,' she said, extending her
fingers just as though she stood in her own drawing-room.
MISERY DRIVES SOME INSANE.
"I looked at the maid in astonishment, for I had never met the young
society woman before. The maid shook her head and whispered when she
got the chance:
"'My mistress is not in her right mind.'
"'Where is her husband?' I asked.
"'He has gone to try to get some food,' said the girl.
'She imagines that she is in her own home, before her dressing table, and
is having me do up her hair against some of her friends dropping in.'
"'She must have suffered,' I said, 'to cause such a
mental derangement.'
"The girl's eyes filled with tears. She told me that her
mistress had seen her brother killed by falling timbers while they
were hurrying to a place of safety. A little farther on I saw two
women concealed as best they might be behind a tuft of sand brush,
one lying face down on the ground, while the other vigorously massaged her
bare back. I asked if I might help, and learned that the ministering
angel was the unmarried daughter of one of the city's richest merchants, and
that the girl whom she succored had been employed as a servant in her
father's household. The girl's back had been injured by a fall, and her
mistress' fair hands were trying to make her well again.
"Thus has this overwhelming common woe levelled all barriers of caste
and placed the suffering multitude on a basis of democracy. On a rock behind
a manzanita bush near the edge of Stow Lake I saw a Chinaman making a pile of
broken twigs in the early morning. The man felt inside his blouse and
swore a gibbering, unintelligible Asiatic oath as his hand came forth
empty. Observing my escort, the Chinaman approached and said:
"'Bosse, alle same, catchee match?'
"My escort gave him the desired article, and the Chinaman made a fire of
his pile of twigs. 'Why are you making a fire, John?' I asked.
"'Bleakfast,' he replied laconically.
"I asked him where his food might be, and he gave us a quick glance of
suspicion as he said briefly, 'No sabbe.'
"We stood watching him, evidently to his great distress, and finally he
made bold to say, 'You no stand lound, bosse. You go 'way.'
"We left him, but after making the tour around the lake came back to the
same place. There sat four people on the ground eating fried pork,
potatoes and Chinese cakes. In a young woman of the group I recognized
one whom I had seen dancing at one of Mr. Greenway's Friday Night Cotillion
balls in the Palace Hotel's maple room during the winter. They offered
to share their meal with us, but we told them that we had just come from
breakfast in Oakland. I told them about the strange conduct of their
Chinaman, who was traveling back and forth from his fire to the 'table' with
the food as it became ready to serve.
"The father of the family laughed.
SOCIETY FOLKS COMPELLED TO CAMP.
'Yes,' he said, 'that is Charlie's way. He has been with us
many years, and when our home was destroyed he came out here with us
in preference to seeking refuge among his countrymen in
Chinatown. Yesterday we were without food, and Charlie disappeared. I
thought he had deserted us, but toward dark he came back with a bamboo
pole over his shoulder and a Chinese market gardener's basket
suspended from either end. In one of the baskets he had a pile of
blankets and a lot of canvas. In the other was an assortment of
pork, flour, Chinese cakes and vegetables, besides a half-dozen
chickens and a couple of bagfuls of rice.
"'Charlie had been foraging in Chinatown for us before the fire reached
that quarter. He made a tent and improvised beds for us, and he has the
food concealed somewhere in the vicinity, but where he will not tell us, for
fear that we will give some of it to others and reduce our own supply.
Charlie boils rice for himself. He will not touch the other food.
Without him we should have been starving.'"
G. A. Raymond, who was in the Palace Hotel when the earthquake occurred,
says:
"I had $600 in gold under my pillow. I awoke as I was thrown
out of bed. Attempting to walk, the floor shook so that I fell.
I grabbed my clothing and rushed down into the office, where dozens were
already congregated. Suddenly the lights went out, and every one rushed
for the door.
"Outside I witnessed a sight I never want to see again. It
was dawn and light. I looked up. The air was filled with
falling stones. People around me were crushed to death on all
sides. All around the huge buildings were shaking and waving.
Every moment there were reports like 100 cannon going off at one time.
Then streams of fire would shoot out, and other reports followed.
"I asked a man standing by me what had happened. Before he
could answer a thousand bricks fell on him and he was killed. A
woman threw her arms around my neck. I pushed her away and fled.
All around me buildings were rocking and flames shooting. As I
ran people on all sides were crying, praying and calling for help.
I thought the end of the world had come.
"I met a Catholic priest, and he said: 'We must get to the ferry.' He
knew the way, and we rushed down Market Street. Men, women and children
were crawling from the debris. Hundreds were rushing down the street,
and every minute people were felled by falling debris.
"At places the streets had cracked and opened. Chasms extended
in all directions. I saw a drove of cattle, wild with fright,
rushing up Market Street. I crouched beside a swaying building.
As they came nearer they disappeared, seeming to drop into the earth.
When the last had gone I went nearer and found they had indeed
been precipitated into the earth, a wide fissure having swallowed them. I
worked my way around them and ran out to the ferry. I was crazy with
fear and the horrible sights.
"How I reached the ferry I cannot say. It was bedlam,
pandemonium and hell rolled into one. There must have been 10,000
people trying to get on that boat. Men and women fought like wild cats
to push their way aboard. Clothes were torn from the backs of men
and women and children indiscriminately. Women fainted, and there
was no water at hand with which to revive them. Men lost their
reason at those awful moments. One big, strong man, beat his head
against one of the iron pillars on the dock, and cried out in a loud
voice: 'This fire must be put out! The city must be saved!' It
was awful.
TERRIBLE SCENE AT THE FERRY.
"When the gates were opened the mad rush began. All were
swept aboard in an irresistible tide. We were jammed on the deck
like sardines in a box. No one cared. At last the boat pulled
out. Men and women were still jumping for it, only to fall into the water
and probably drown."
The members of the Metropolitan Opera Company, of New York, were in San
Francisco at this time, and nearly all of these famous singers, known all
over the world, suffered from the great disaster.
All of the splendid scenery, stage fittings, costumes and
musical instruments were lost in the fire, which destroyed the Grand
Opera House, where the season had just opened to splendid audiences.
Many of the operatic stars have given very interesting accounts of their
experiences. Signor Caruso, the famous tenor and one of the principals
of the company, had one of the most thrilling experiences. He and
Signor Rossi, a favorite basso, and his inseparable companion, had a suite on
the seventh floor and were awakened by the terrific shaking of the
building. The shock nearly threw Caruso out of bed. He
said:
"I threw open the window, and I think I let out the grandest notes I
ever hit in all my life. I do not know why I did this. I presume
I was too excited to do anything else.
GREAT SINGERS ESCAPE.
"Looking out of the window, I saw buildings all around rocking
like the devil had hold of them. I wondered what was going on.
Then I heard Rossi come scampering into my room. 'My God, it's
an earthquake!' he yelled. 'Get your things and run!' I grabbed
what I could lay my hands on and raced like a madman for the office.
On the way down I shouted as loud as I could so the others would
wake up.
"When I got to the office I thought of my costumes and sent my valet,
Martino, back after them. He packed things up and carried the trunks
down on his back. I helped him take them to Union Square."
It is said that ten minutes later he was seen seated on his valise in
the middle of the street. But to continue his story:
"I walked a few feet away to see how to get out, and when I came back
four Chinamen were lugging my trunks away. I grabbed one of them by the
ears, and the others jumped on me. I took out my revolver and pointed
it at them. They spit at me. I was mad, but I hated to kill them,
so I found a soldier, and he made them give up the trunks.
"Ah, that soldier was a fine fellow. He went up to the
Chinamen and slapped them upon the face, once, twice, three times. They
all howled like the devil and ran away. I put my revolver back into
my pocket, and then I thanked the soldier. He said: "'Don't
mention it. Them Chinks would steal the money off a dead man's
eyes.'"
They say that Rossi, though almost in tears, was heard trying his voice
at a corner near the Palace Hotel.
TEDDY'S PICTURE PROVES "OPEN SESAME."
"I went to Lafayette Square and slept on the grass. When I
tried to get into the square the soldiers pushed me back. I pleaded
with them, but they would not listen. I had under my arm a
large photograph of Theodore Roosevelt, upon which was written:
'With kindest regards from Theodore Roosevelt.' I showed them this,
and one of them said: 'If you are a friend of Teddy, come in and
make yourself at home.'
"I put my trunks in the cellar of the Hotel St. Francis and thought they
would be safe. The hotel caught fire, and my trunks were all burned
up. To think I took so much trouble to save them!"
In spite of the news of all the woe and suffering which we hear, it is
cheering to learn also of the many thousands of heroic deeds by brave men
during the terrible scenes enacted through the four days passing since the
eventful morning when the earth began to demolish splendid buildings of
business and residence and fire sprang up to complete the city's
destruction. The Mayor and his forces of police, the troops under
command of General Funston, volunteer aids to all these, and the husbands of
terrified wives, and the sons, brothers and other relatives who toiled for
many consecutive hours through smoke and falling walls and an inferno of
flames and explosions and traps of danger of all kinds, often without food
or water—toiling as men never toiled before to save life and
relieve distress of all kinds—all these were examples of heroism
and devotion to duty seldom witnessed in any scenes of terror in
all time. There are brave, unselfish men and heroic women yet in
the world, and all of the best of human nature has been exhibited in large
dimensions in the terrible disaster at San Francisco.
Disaster Spreads Over the Golden State
The first news that the world received of the earthquake came direct
from San Francisco and was confined largely to descriptions of the disaster
which had overwhelmed that city. It was so sudden, so appalling, so
tragic in its nature, that for the time being it quite overshadowed the havoc
and misery wrought in a number of other California towns of lesser
note.
As the truth, however, became gradually sifted out of the tangle
of rumors, the horror, instead of being diminished, was
vastly increased. It became evident that instead of this being a
local catastrophe, the full force of the seismic waves had travelled
from Ukiah in the north to Monterey in the south, a distance of about 180
miles, and had made itself felt for a considerable distance from the Pacific
westward, wrecking the larger buildings of every town in its path, rending
and ruining as it went, and doing millions of dollars worth of damage.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SANTA ROSA.
In Santa Rosa, sixty miles to the north of San Francisco, and one of
the most beautiful towns of California, practically every building was
destroyed or badly damaged. The brick and stone business blocks,
together with the public buildings, were thrown down. The Court House,
Hall of Records, the Occidental and Santa Rosa Hotels, the Athenaeum Theatre,
the new Masonic Temple, Odd Fellows' Block, all the banks, everything went,
and in all the city not one brick or stone building was left standing, except
the California Northwestern Depot.
In the residential portion of the city the foundations receded
from under the houses, badly wrecking about twenty of the largest
and damaging every one more or less; and here, as in San Francisco, flames
followed the earthquake, breaking out in a dozen different places at once and
completing the work of devastation. From the ruins of the fallen houses
fifty-eight bodies were taken out and interred during the first few days, and
the total of dead and injured was close to a hundred. The money loss at
this small city is estimated at $3,000,000.
The destruction of Santa Rosa gave rise to general sorrow among
the residents of the interior of the State. It was one of the
show towns of California, and not only one of the most prosperous
cities in the fine county of Sonoma, but one of the most picturesque
in the State. Surrounding it there were miles of orchards,
vineyards and corn fields. The beautiful drives of the city were
adorned with bowers of roses, which everywhere were seen growing about
the homes of the people. In its vicinity are the famous gardens
of Luther Burbank, the "California wizard," but these fortunately escaped
injury.
At San Jose, another very beautiful city of over 20,000 population, not
a single brick or stone building of two stories or over was left
standing. Among those wrecked were the Hall of justice, just completed
at a cost of $300,000; the new High School, the Presbyterian Church and St.
Patrick's Cathedral. Numbers of people were caught in the ruins and
maimed or killed. The death list appears to have been small, but the
property damage was not less than $5,000,000. The Agnew State Insane
Asylum, in the vicinity of San Jose, was entirely destroyed, more than half
the inmates being killed or injured.
THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
The Leland Stanford, Jr., University, at Palo Alto (about
thirty miles south of San Francisco), felt the full force of
the earthquake and was badly wrecked. Only two lives were lost as
a result of the earthquake, one of a student, the other of a fireman, but
eight students were injured more or less seriously. The damage to the
buildings is estimated by President Jordan to amount to about
$4,000,000.
The memorial church, with its twelve marble figures of the apostles,
each weighing two tons, was badly injured by the fall of its Gothic spire,
which crashed through the roof and demolished much of the interior; the great
entrance archway was split in twain and wrecked; so, too, were the library,
the gymnasium and the power house. A number of other buildings in the
outer quadrangle and some of the small workshops were seriously
damaged.
Encina Hall and the inner quadrangle were practically uninjured, and the
bulk of the books, collections and apparatus escaped damage.
Sacramento, together with all the smaller cities and towns that dot the
great Sacramento Valley for a distance fifty miles south and 150 miles north
of the capital, escaped without injury, not a single pane of glass being
broken or a brick displaced in Sacramento and no injury done in the other
places, they lying eastward of the seat of serious earthquake activity.
Los Angeles and Santa Barbara escaped with a slight trembling; Stockton,
103 miles north of San Francisco, felt a severe shock and the Santa Fe bridge
over the San Joaquin River at this point settled several inches. The
only place in Southern California that suffered was Brawley, a small town
lying 120 miles south of Los Angeles, about 100 buildings in the town and the
surrounding valley being injured, though none of them were destroyed.
THE EARTHQUAKE AT OTHER CITIES.
At Alameda, on the bay opposite San Francisco, a score of
chimneys were shaken down and other injuries done. Railroad tracks
were twisted, and over 600 feet of track of the Oakland Transit Company's
railway sank four feet. The total damage done amounted to probably
$200,000, but no lives were lost. Tomales, a place of 350 inhabitants,
was left a pile of ruins.
At Los Panos several buildings were wrecked, causing damage to
the extent of $75,000, but no lives were lost.
At Loma Prieta the earthquake caused a mine house to slip down the side
of a mountain, ten men being buried in the ruins.
Fort Bragg, one of the principal lumbering towns in Mendocino County,
was practically wiped out by fire following the earthquake, but out of a
population of 5,000 only one was killed, though scores were injured.
The town of Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco,
suffered considerable damage from twisted structures, fallen walls
and broken chimneys, the greatest injury being in the collapse of the town
hall and the ruin of the deaf and dumb asylum. The University of
California, situated here, was fortunate in escaping injury, it being
reported that not a building was harmed in the slightest degree.
Another public edifice of importance and interest, in a different section of
the State, the famous Lick Astronomical Observatory, was equally fortunate,
no damage being done to the buildings or the instruments.
AT THE STATE UNIVERSITY.
Salinas, a town down the coast near Monterey, suffered severely, the
place being to a large extent destroyed, with an estimated loss of over
$1,000,000. The Spreckels' sugar factory and a score of other buildings
were reported ruined and a number of lives lost. During the succeeding week
several other shocks of some strength were reported from this town.
Thus the ruinous work of the earthquake stretched over a broad track of
prosperous, peaceful and happy country, embracing one of the best sections of
California, laying waste not only the towns in its path, but doing much
damage to ranch houses and country residences. Strange manifestations
of nature were reported from the interior, where the ground was opened in
many places like a ploughed field. Great rents in the earth were
reported, and for many miles north from Los Angeles miniature geysers are
said to have spouted volcano-like streams of hot mud.
Railroad tracks in some localities were badly injured, sinking
or lifting, and being put out of service until repaired. In fact,
the ruinous effects of the earthquake immensely exceeded those of
any similar catastrophe ever before known in the United States, and when
the destruction done by the succeeding conflagration in San Francisco is
taken into account the California earthquake of 1906 takes rank with the most
destructive of those recorded in history.
All America and Canada to the Rescue
During the first three days after the terrible news had been flashed
over the world the relief fund from the nation had leaped beyond the
$5,000,000 mark. New York took the lead in the most generous giving
that the world has ever seen. From every town and country village the
people hastened to the Town Halls, the newspaper offices and wherever help
was to be found most quickly, to add their savings and to sacrifice all but
necessities for their stricken fellow-countrymen. Never has there been
such a practical illustration of brotherly love. A perfect shower of
gold and food was poured out to the sufferers to give them immediate
assistance and to help them to a new start in life. All relief records
were broken within two days of the disaster, but still the purses of
the rich and poor alike continued to add to the huge contributions. Though
the relief records were broken, every succeeding dispatch from the West told
too plainly the terrible fact that all records of necessity were also
broken.
Over the entire globe Americans wherever they were hastened to cable or
telegraph their bankers to add their share to the great work. A large
fund was at once started in London, and with contributions of from $2,000 to
$12,000 the sum was soon raised to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Individual contributions of $100,000 were common. In addition
to John D. Rockefeller's gift of this sum, his company, the Standard Oil,
gave another $100,000. The Steel Corporation and Andrew Carnegie each
gave $100,000. From London William Waldorf Astor cabled his American
representative, Charles A. Peabody, to place $100,000 at once at the disposal
of Mayor Schmitz, of San Francisco, which was done. The Dominion
Government of Canada made a special appropriation of $100,000 and the
Canadian Bank of Commerce, at Toronto, gave $10,000. And two of the
great steamship companies owned in Germany sent $25,000 each.
RIGHT OF WAY FOR FOOD TRAINS.
On nearly a dozen roads, two days before the fire was over,
great trains of freight cars loaded with foodstuffs were hastening
at express speed to San Francisco. They had the right of way on
every line. E. H. Harriman, in addition to giving $200,000 for the
Union Pacific, Southern Pacific and other Harriman roads, issued
orders that all relief trains bound for the desolated city should
have Precedence over all other business of the roads.
Advices from many points indicated that at least 150 freight cars loaded
with the necessaries so eagerly awaited in San Francisco were speeding there
as fast as steam could drive them. In addition, several steamers from
other Pacific coast points, all food-laden, were rushing toward the stricken
city.
The rapidity with which the various relief funds in every city grew was
almost magical.
From corporations, firms, labor unions, religious
societies, individuals, rich and poor, money flowed. Even the children
in the schools gave their pennies. Every grade of society, every
branch of trade and commerce seemed inspired by a spirit of emulation
in giving.
The United States Government at once voted a contribution of $1,000,000,
and government supplies were rushed from every post in the West.
The $1,000,000 government gift, which formed the nucleus of the relief
fund, was doubled on Saturday by a resolution appropriating another, and a
vote was taken on Monday to increase this sum to $1,500,000, making a total
government contribution of $2,500,000. This was largely expended in supplies
of absolute necessaries, furnished from the stores of the War Department, and
those first sent being five carloads of army medical supplies from St.
Louis. A cargo of evaporated cream was also sent to use in the care
of little children, while the Red Cross Society shipped a carload of eggs
from Chicago. Dr. Edward Devine, special Red Cross agent in San
Francisco, was appointed to distribute these supplies.
CARGOES OF SUPPLIES.
Trainloads of other supplies were dispatched in all haste
from various points in the West and East, carrying provisions of
all kinds, tents, cots, clothing, bedding and a great variety of
other articles. A special train of twenty-six cars was dispatched
from Portland, Oregon, on Thursday night, conveying ten doctors,
twenty trained nurses and 800,000 pounds of provisions. Chicago
sent meat. Minneapolis sent flour, and, in fact, every part of
the country moved in the greatest haste for the relief of the
stricken city.
There was urgent need of haste. On Friday, while the flames
were still making their way onward, General Funston telegraphed:
"Famine seems inevitable." The people of the country took a more
hopeful view of it, and by Saturday night the spectre of famine
was definitely driven from the field and food for all the fugitives
was within reach.
THE SYMPATHY OF THE PEOPLE AWAKES.
On all sides the people were awake and doing. In all the
great cities agencies to receive contributions were opened, and many
of the newspapers undertook the task of collecting and
forwarding supplies. The smaller towns were equally alert in furnishing
their quota to the good work, and from countryside and
village contributions were forwarded until the fund accumulated to
an unprecedented amount. Collections were made in factories,
in stores, in offices, in the public schools; cash boxes or globes stood
in all frequented places and were rapidly filled with bank notes; theatrical
and musical entertainments were given for the benefit of the earthquake
sufferers; never had there been such an awakening. As an instance of
the spirit displayed, one man came running into a banking house and threw a
thousand dollar bill on the counter.
"For San Francisco," he said, as he turned toward the door.
"What name?" asked the teller.
"Put it down to 'cash,'" he answered, as he vanished.
Rapidly the fund accumulated. A few days brought it up to
the $5,000,000 mark. Then it grew to $10,000,000. Within
ten days' time the relief fund was estimated at $18,000,000, and the good
work was still going on—in less profusion, it is true, but still the spirit
was alive.
FOREIGN OFFERS OF AID.
The generous impulse was not confined to the United States.
From all countries came offers of aid. Canada was promptly in
the field, and the chief nations of Europe were quick to follow,
while Japan made a generous offer, and in far Australia funds were started
at the various cities for the sufferers. No doubt a large sum from
foreign lands would have been available had not President Roosevelt declined
to accept contributions from abroad, as not needed in view of America's
abundant response. To the Hamburg-Line which offered $25,000, the
following letter was sent:
"The President deeply appreciates your message of sympathy, and desires
me to thank you heartily for the kind offer of outside aid. Although
declining, the President earnestly wishes you to understand how much he
appreciates your cordial and generous sympathy."
All other offerings from abroad were in the same thankful
spirit declined, even those from our immediate neighbors, Canada
and Mexico. Some feeling was aroused by this, especially in the
relief committee at San Francisco, which felt that the need of that
city was so great and urgent that no offer of relief should have
been declined. In response the President explained that he only
spoke for the government, in his official capacity, and that San Francisco
was in no sense debarred from accepting any contributions made directly to
it.
It may justly be said for the people of this country that
their spontaneous generosity in the presence of a great calamity,
either at home or abroad, is always magnificent. It never waits
for solicitation. It does not delay even until the necessity
is demonstrated, but it assumes that where there is great destruction of
property and homes are swept away there must be distress which calls for
immediate relief.
There is one ray of light in the gloom caused by the calamity at San
Francisco. A truly splendid display of brotherly love and sympathy has
been shown by the people of this country, and a similar display was ready to
be shown by the people of the civilized world had it been felt that the
occasion demanded it and that the exigency surpassed the power of our people
to meet it.
ENTERPRISE IN SAN FRANCISCO.
In the face of an appalling and death-dealing disaster, rendering an
entire community dependent for the bare necessities of life and putting it in
imminent danger of greater horrors, the nation has been stirred as it has
rarely been before, and there have been awakened those deeper feelings of
brotherhood which are referred to in the oft-quoted passage that "one touch
of nature makes the whole world akin."
The nature indicated in this instance is human nature in its highest
manifestation, the sympathetic sentiment that stirs deeply in all our hearts
and needs but the occasion to make itself warmly manifested. There is
something incomparably splendid in the spectacle of an entire nation
straining every nerve to send succor to the helpless and the suffering, and
this spectacle has warmed the hearts of our people to the uttermost and
inspired them to make the most strenuous efforts to drive away the gaunt wolf
of famine from the ruined homes of our far Pacific brethren.
It may be said that San Francisco will be willing to accept this relief
only so long as stern necessity demands it. At this writing only two
weeks have passed since the dread calamity, and already active steps are
being taken to provide for themselves. As an example of their
enterprise, it may be said that their newspapers hardly suspended at all, the
Evening Post alone suspending publication for a time from being unable to
acquire a plant in the vicinity of the city. When the conflagration
made it apparent that all plants would be destroyed, the Bulletin put at work
a force in its composing rooms, a hand-bill was set and some hundreds
of copies run off on the proof-press, giving the salient features of the
day's news.
The morning papers, the Call, Chronicle and Examiner, retired
to Oakland, on the other side of the bay, and there, on Thursday morning,
issued a joint paper from the office of the Oakland Tribune. On Friday
morning they split forces again, the Examiner retaining the use of the
Tribune plant and the Call and Chronicle issuing from the office of the
Oakland Herald. Two days later the Call secured the service of the
Oakland Enquirer plant. Meantime, on Friday, the Bulletin, after a
suspension of one day, made arrangements for the use in the afternoon of the
Oakland Herald equipment, and from these sources and under such circumstances
the San Francisco papers have been issuing.
Offices were hurriedly opened on Fillmore Street, which today is the
main thoroughfare of San Francisco, and from these headquarters the news of
the day as it is gathered is transmitted by means of automobiles and ferry
service to the Oakland shore.
There also were accepted such advertisements as had been offered. The
number of these was, perhaps, the best visual sign of the resurrection of the
new city. It was noted that in a fourteen-page paper printed within two
weeks after the fire by the Examiner there were over nine pages of
advertisements, and in a sixteen-page paper published by the Chronicle at
least fifty percent of its space was devoted to the same end.
Many of the larger factories left unharmed were also quick to
start work. At the Union Iron Works 2,300 men were promptly
employed, and the management expected within a fortnight to have the
full complement of its force, nearly 4,000 men, engaged. No damage
was done to the three new warships being built at these works for
the government, the cruisers California and Milwaukee and the battleship
South Dakota. The steamer City of Puebla, which was sunk in the bay,
has been raised and is being repaired. Workmen are also engaged fixing
the steamship Columbia, which was turned on her side. The hulls of the
new Hawaiian-American Steamship Company's liners were pitched about four feet
to the south, but were uninjured and only need to be replaced in
position.
As for the working people at large, those without funds for their own
support, abundant employment will quickly be provided for them in the
necessary work of clearing away the debris, thus opening the way to a
resumption of business and reducing the number requiring relief. The
ukase has already been issued that all able-bodied men needing aid must go to
work or leave the city.
This dictum of Chief of Police Dinan's will be strictly enforced. The
relief work and distribution of food and clothing are attracting a certain
element to the city which does not desire to labor, while some already here
prefer to live on the generosity of others. Chief Dinan has determined
that those who apply for relief and refuse work when it is offered them shall
leave the city or be arrested for vagrancy. The police judges have
suggested establishing a chain gang and putting all vagrants and
petty offenders at work clearing up the ruins.
Perhaps never in the history of the city has there been so little crime
in San Francisco. With the saloons closed, Chinatown, the Barbary
Coast, and other haunts of criminals wiped out, and soldiers and marines on
almost every block in the residence districts, there have been few crimes of
any kind. It is the opinion of the police that most of the criminal
element has left the city. The saloons, in all probability will remain
closed for two more months.
THE PROBLEM OF THE CHINESE.
In conclusion of this chapter it is advisable to refer to
the situation of one of the elements of San Francisco's population,
the people of Chinatown. One of the problems facing the
relief committees on both sides of the bay is the sheltering of
the Chinese. Many of them are destitute. It has long been a
question in San Francisco what should be done with Chinatown, and moving
the Chinese in the direction of Colma has been agitated. Now they
are without homes and without prospects of procuring any. They can
get no land. The limits of Oakland's Chinatown have already
been extended, and the strictest police regulations are in force
to prevent further enlargement. On this side of the bay they
are camping in open lots. Unless the government undertakes
their relief, they are in grave danger. Those who have money
cannot purchase property, as no one will sell to them. Few, however,
even of the wealthiest merchants in Chinatown, saved anything of
value, for their wealth was invested in the Oriental village which
had sprung up in the heart of the area burned.
Yet it is the desire of the municipality not to harass this portion of
its foreign population, and the vexatious problem of placing the new
Chinatown will probably be settled to the satisfaction of the Chinese
colony. This colony diverts an important part of the trade of San
Francisco to that city, and if its members are dealt with unjustly there is
danger of losing this trade. The question is one that must be left for
the future to decide, but no doubt care will be taken that a new Chinatown
with the unsavory conditions of the old shall not arise.
San Francisco of the Past
The story of San Francisco's history and tragedy appeal
with extraordinary force to the imagination of all civilized men.
For several generations the city was looked upon as an Arabian
Night's dream—a place where gold lay in the streets and joy and
happiness were unlimited. Its settlement, or, rather, its real rise as
a city, was as by magic. It was first a city of tents, of
shanties, of "shacks," lying on the rim of a great, spacious bay. Ships
of all sizes and rigs brought gold-seekers and provisions from the East,
all the way round Cape Horn, after voyages of weary months, and at San
Francisco their crews deserted and hundreds of these craft were left at their
moorings to rot. Ashore was a riot of money, prodigious extravagance,
mean, shabby appointments, sudden riches, great disappointment, revelry,
improvidence and suicide.
The streets that now lay squares from the water were then at the water's
edge and batteaus brought cargoes ashore. Long wharves—one was for
years called the Long Wharf even after there were others built much
longer—led out over the shallow water. These shallows were later
filled and streets built upon them, and upon them arose warehouses, hotels,
factories, lodging houses and business places.
The city grew rapidly in the direction away from the bay. But
in its early days it was a city with no confidence in its own stability,
and its buildings were accordingly unstable. A few minor earthquakes
shook some of these down years ago and established in the minds of the people
a horror of earthquakes. Frame houses became the rule.
In its ensuing life San Francisco developed the attributes of a city of
gayety tempered by business. The population, for the most part,
affected light-hearted scorn of money, or, rather, of saving money. It
made mirth of life, habituated itself to expect windfalls such as miners and
prospectors dream of, developed a moderate amount of business, and enjoyed
the day while there was sunlight and the night when there was artificial
light. The windfalls grew less frequent, mining became a costly and
scientific process, and agriculture succeeded it. But, though it was
only necessary to tickle the land with a hoe and pour water upon
the tickled spot, to have it laugh with two, three or even four harvests a
year, agriculturists continued scarce. The Chinese truck farms, some of
which lay within the city's lines, supplied the small fruits and
vegetables. Across the bay white men farmed, and grapes, fruits,
vegetables and flowers of prodigious variety and monstrous dimensions were
grown. But Eastern men came to do the farming. The Californian
who himself was an "Argonaut," or whose father was an Argonaut, found no
attractions in the steady labor of farming.
There followed a period of depression, ascribed by many to the influx of
the Chinese and their effect upon the labor market, though the army of the
unemployed were as a rule unwilling to do the work their Celestial rivals
engaged in, that of truck farming, fruit raising, manual household labor,
wood cutting and the like. A heavy weight settled on the city; business grew
slack; the army of the unemployed, of ruined speculators and moneyless
newcomers grew steadily greater, and for an era San Francisco saw its
dark side.
But this was not a long duration. There was fast developing a
new and important business, resulting from the development of the
real resources of the State—the fruits, particularly the citrous
fruits that grew abundantly in the warm valley. Fortunes were made
in oranges, lemons, limes, grapes, almonds and pears. Raisins,
whose size defied anything heretofore known, were made from the
huge grapes that grew in the San Joaquin Valley. Sonoma sent its
grapes to be made into wine. Capital flowed in from every side.
Eastern men in search of health, others in search of wealth, came to
the Golden State. No matter who came, where they came from, or
where they were going, they spent a few days, or many, and some money,
or much, in "Frisco." The enterprise of the second edition
pioneers quickly transformed the State and city.
AGRICULTURE BRINGS NEW WEALTH.
Luxury was startling. San Francisco's mercantile community
equaled the best, the stores and shops were as beautiful as anywhere in
the world and proportionately as well patronized. Theatres,
music halls, restaurants, hotel bars and the like were ablaze with
lights at night, and patronized by a gay throng. Sutro's bath, near
the Cliff House, was a species of entertainment unequaled anywhere. The
Presidio, as the army post is still known, as in the Spanish nomenclature,
gave its drills, regarded as free exhibitions for the people. Golden
Gate Park was an endless daily picnic ground.
The crowds in the streets of San Francisco were noticeably well dressed
and usually gay, without that fixed, drawn, saturnine look noticeable among
the people of the East. It is doubtful whether, upon the whole, the
earnings of the San Francisco man equaled those of his Eastern brother, but
his holidays were frequent and his joys greater. The grind of life was
not yet steady—men had not become mere machines.
The climate of California is peculiar; it is hard to give an impression
of it. In the first place, all the forces of nature work on laws of
their own in that part of California. There is no thunder or lightning;
there is no snow, except a flurry once in five or six years; there are
perhaps half a dozen nights in the winter when the thermometer drops low
enough so that there is a little film of ice on exposed water in the
morning. Neither is there any hot weather. Yet most Easterners
remaining in San Francisco for a few days remember that they were always
chilly.
A PECULIAR YET DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE.
For the Gate is a big funnel, drawing in the winds and the
mists which cool off the great, hot interior valley of San Joaquin
and Sacramento. So the west wind blows steadily ten months of the
year and almost all the mornings are foggy. This keeps the
temperature steady at about 55 degrees—a little cool for comfort of
an unacclimated person, especially indoors. Californians, used to
it, hardly ever think of making fires in their houses except in the
few exceptional days of the winter season, and then they rely mainly upon
fireplaces. This is like the custom of the Venetians and
the Florentines.
But give an Easterner six months of it, and he, too, learns to exist
without a chill in a steady temperature a little lower than that to which he
is accustomed at home. After that one goes about with perfect
indifference to the temperature. Summer and winter San Francisco women
wear light tailor-made clothes, and men wear the same fall-weight suits all
the year around.
Except for the modern buildings, the fruit of the last ten years, the
town presented at first sight to the newcomer a
disreputable appearance. Most of the buildings were low and of
wood. In the middle period of the 70's, when a great part of San
Francisco was building, there was some atrocious architecture
perpetrated. In that time, too, every one put bow windows on his house,
to catch all of the morning sunlight that was coming through the fog,
and those little houses, with bow windows and fancy work all down
their fronts, were characteristic of the middle class
residence districts.
Then the Italians, who tumbled over Telegraph Hill, had built as they
listed and with little regard for streets, and their houses hung crazily on a
side hill which was little less than a precipice. For the most part the
Chinese, although they occupied an abandoned business district, had remade
the houses Chinese fashion, and the Mexicans and Spaniards had added to their
houses those little balconies without which life is not life to a
Spaniard.
The hills are steep beyond conception. Where Vallejo Street ran
up Russian Hill it progressed for four blocks by regular steps like
a flight of stairs.
With these hills, with the strangeness of the architecture, and with the
green gray tinge over everything, the city fell always into vistas and
pictures, a setting for the romance which hung over everything, which has
always hung over life in San Francisco since the padres came and gathered the
Indians about Mission Dolores.
And it was a city of romance and a gateway to adventure. It
opened out on the mysterious Pacific, the untamed ocean, and most
of China, Japan, the South Sea Islands, Lower California, the west coast
of Central America, Australia that came to this country passed in through the
Golden Gate. There was a sprinkling, too, of Alaska and Siberia.
From his windows on Russian Hill one saw always something strange and
suggestive creeping through the mists of the bay. It would be a South
Sea Island brig, bringing in copra, to take out cottons and idols; a Chinese
junk with fan-like sails, back from an expedition after sharks' livers; an
old whaler, which seemed to drip oil, back from a year of cruising in
the Arctic. Even, the tramp windjammers were deep-chested
craft, capable of rounding the Horn or of circumnavigating the globe;
and they came in streaked and picturesque from their long voyaging.
A MIXTURE OF RACES.
In the orange colored dawn which always comes through the mists
of that bay, the fishing fleet would crawl in under triangular
lateen sails, for the fishermen of San Francisco Bay are all
Neapolitans, who have brought their costumes and sail with lateen rigs
shaped like the ear of a horse when the wind fills them and stained
an orange brown.
The "smelting pot of the races" Stevenson called the region along the
water front, for here the people of all these craft met, Italians, Greeks,
Russians, Lascars, Kanakas, Alaska Indians, black Gilbert Islanders,
Spanish-Americans, wanderers and sailors from all the world, who came in and
out from among the queer craft to lose themselves in the disreputable
shanties and saloons. The Barbary Coast was a veritable bit of Satan's
realm. The place was made up of three solid blocks of dance halls, for
the delectation of the sailors of the world. Within those streets of
peril the respectable never set foot; behind the swinging doors of
those saloons anything might be happening, crime was as common here
as drink, and much went on of which the law was blankly ignorant.
Not far removed from this haunt of crime was the world-famous Chinatown,
a district six blocks long and two wide, and housing when at its fullest some
30,000 Chinese. Old business houses at first, the new inmates added to
them, rebuilt them, ran out their own balconies and entrances, and gave them
that feeling of huddled irregularity which makes all Chinese built dwellings
fall naturally into pictures. Not only this, they burrowed to a depth
equal to three stories under the ground, and through this ran passages
in which the Chinese transacted their dark and devious affairs—as
the smuggling of opium, the traffic in slave girls and the settlement of
their difficulties, by murder if they saw fit. The law was powerless to
prevent or discover and convict the murderers.
Chinatown is gone; the Barbary Coast is gone; the haunts of crime have
been swept by the devouring flames, and if the citizens can prevent they will
never be restored. The old San Francisco is dead. The gayest,
lightest-hearted, most pleasure-loving city of this continent, and in many
ways the most interesting and romantic, is a horde of huddled refugees living
among ruins. It may rebuild; it probably will; but those who have known
that peculiar city by the Golden Gate and have caught its flavor of the
Arabian Nights feel that it can never be the same. When it rises out of
its ashes it will probably doubtless resemble other modern cities and
have lost its old strange flavor.
Life in the Metropolis of the Pacific
Brought up in a bountiful country, where no one really has to
work very hard to live, nurtured on adventure, scion of a free and
merry stock, the real, native Californian is a distinctive type; as
far from the Easterner in psychology as the extreme Southern is from the
Yankee. He is easy going, witty, hospitable, lovable, inclined to be
unmoral rather than immoral in his personal habits, and above all easy to
meet and to know.
Above all there is an art sense all through the populace which sets it
off from any other part of the country. This sense is almost Latin in
its strength, and the Californian owes it to the leaven of Latin blood.
THE 'FRISCO RESTAURANTS.
With such a people life was always gay. If they did not show it
on the streets, as do the people of Paris, it was because the winds made
open cafes disagreeable at all seasons of the year. The gayety went on
indoors or out on the hundreds of estates that fringed the city. It was
noted for its restaurants. Perhaps people who cared not how they spent
their money could get the best they wished, but for a dollar down to as low
as fifteen cents the restaurants furnished the best fare to be had anywhere
at the price.
The country all about produced everything that a cook needs, and that in
abundance—the bay was an almost untapped fish-pond, the fruit farms came up
to the very edge of the town, and the surrounding country produced in
abundance fine meats, all cereals and all vegetables.
But the chefs who came from France in the early days and liked this land
of plenty were the head and front of it. They passed their art to other
Frenchmen or to the clever Chinese. Most of the French chefs at the
biggest restaurants were born in Canton, China. Later the Italians, learning
of this country where good food is appreciated, came and brought their own
style. Householders always dined out one or two nights of the week, and
boarding houses were scarce, for the unattached preferred the
restaurants. The eating was usually better than the surroundings.
THE FAMOUS POODLE DOG.
Meals that were marvels were served in tumbledown little
hotels. Most famous of all the restaurants was the Poodle Dog. There
have been no less than four restaurants of this name, beginning with
a frame shanty where, in the early days, a prince of French cooks used to
exchange recipes for gold dust. Each succeeding restaurant of the name
has moved farther downtown; and the recent Poodle Dog stands—or stood—on
the edge of the Tenderloin in a modern five-story building. And it
typified a certain spirit that there was in San Francisco.
On the ground floor was a public restaurant where there was served the
best dollar dinner on earth. It ranked with the best and the others
were in San Francisco. Here, especially on Sunday night, almost
everybody went to vary the monotony of home cooking. Every one who was
any one in the town could be seen there off and on. It was perfectly
respectable. A man might take his wife and daughter there.
On the second floor there were private dining rooms, and to dine there,
with one or more of the opposite sex, was risque but not especially
terrible. But the third floor—and the fourth floor—and the
fifth! The elevator man of the Poodle Dog, who had held the job for
many years and never spoke unless spoken to, wore diamonds and was a heavy
investor in real estate.
There were others as famous in their way—Zinkaud's, where, at one time,
every one went after the theatre, and Tate's, which has lately bitten into
that trade; the Palace Grill, much like the grills of Eastern hotels, except
for the price; Delmonico's, which ran the Poodle Dog neck and neck in its own
line, and many others, humbler, but great at the price.
THE BOHEMIAN CLUB.
To the visitor who came to see the city and who put himself in
the hands of one of its well-to-do citizens for the purpose, the few days
that followed were apt to be a whirl of mirth and sight-seeing, made up of
breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, drives, little trips across the bay, dashes
down the peninsula to the polo and country clubs, hours spent in Bohemia,
trips around the world among all the races of the habitable globe, all of
whom had their colonies in this most cosmopolitan of American cities.
In club life the Bohemian stood first and foremost, the famous
club whose meeting place, with all its art treasures, is now a heap
of ashes, but which was formerly 'Frisco's head-centre of mirth. Founded
by Henry George, the world-famous single tax advocate, when he was an
impecunious scribbler on the San Francisco Post, it grew to be the choicest
place of resort in the Pacific metropolis.
Within its walls the possession of dollars was a bar rather than
an "open sesame," the master key to its circles being the knack of telling
a good story or the possession of quick and telling wit. Fun-making was the
rule there, and the only way to escape being made its victim was the power to
deliver a ready and witty retort. In this home of good fellowship all the
artists, actors, wits, literati, fiddlers, pianists and bon vivants were
members. Here an impoverished painter could square his grill and buffet
account by giving the club a daub to hang on its walls. Here in days of
old the Sheriff used to camp regularly once a month until the
members rustled up the money to replevin the furniture. But these days
of poverty passed away, and in later years the club came to
know prosperity beyond the dreams of the good fellows who founded it.
THE WICKEDEST AND GAYEST.
The Bohemian is gone, but the spirit that founded and made it
still exists, and we may look to see it rise, like the phoenix, from
its ashes.
San Francisco was often called the wickedest city in America.
It was hardly that, it was simply the gayest. It was not the home
of purity; neither is any other city. What other cities do
behind closed doors San Francisco did not hesitate to do in the open.
In Eastern cities the police have driven vice into tenements, lodging
houses and apartments. San Francisco did not do that. She had
certain quarters where, according to unwritten law, vice was allowed to
abide, and she did not try to hide the fact that it could be found
there. She was not secretly immoral; she was frankly unmoral.
She did not believe in driving her vice from the open where it could be
recognized and controlled—prevented from doing any more harm than it was
possible to stop—into districts of the city where good people dwell and
purity would feel its contaminating influence. There were regions in
which the respectable never set foot, haunts of acknowledged vice which for
virtue to enter would be to lose caste.
As for its gayety, San Francisco was proud of the reputation of being
the Paris of America. Its women were beautiful, and they knew it.
They liked to adorn their beauty with fine clothes and peacock along the
streets on matinee days. If you asked a San Francisco girl why she wore
such expensive clothes, she would say, frankly, "Because I like to have the
men admire me," and she would see no harm in saying it. There was very
little sham about the San Francisco women. Their men understood them
and worshiped them. They bore themselves with the freedom that was theirs by
right of their heritage of open-air living, the Bohemian atmosphere
they breathed, the unconventional character of their surroundings. Their
figures were strong and well moulded, their faces bloomed with health like
the roses in their gardens. They drew the wine of laughter from their
balmy California air. Sorrow and trouble sat lightly on their
shoulders.
There was no end of enjoyments. After the theatre they would go
to Zinkaud's, Tate's, the Palace or some other of the many places
of resort, for a snack to eat and a spell under the music, which was to be
heard everywhere.
Another part of the gay life of the city was for a private dance to keep
going all night in a fashionable residence, and at daylight, instead of
everybody going to bed, to jump into automobiles or carriages or take the
trolley cars and whizz off to the beach for a dip in the cold salt water pool
at Sutro's baths, and then, with ravenous appetites, sit down on the Cliff
House balcony to an open- air breakfast while watching the ships sail in and
out at the Golden Gate and hearing the seals barking on the rocks.
After that home and to rest.
AN ALL-NIGHT TOWN.
The city never went to sleep altogether. It was "an
all-night" town. Few of the restaurants ever closed, none of the
saloons did. Always during the whole twenty-four hours of the day there
was "something doing" in the Tenderloin. No hour of the night was
ever free of revelry. It was marvelous how they kept it up.
The average San Franciscon could stay awake all night at a card game, take
a cold wash and a good breakfast in the morning, and go straight downtown to
business and feel none the worse for it.
It was a gay town, a captivating, piquant, audacious, but not especially
wicked city. A Frenchy, a risque city it might justly have been called,
but it was not wicked in the sense that sordid vice, vulgar crime and
wretched squalor constitute wickedness.
It was a lovable place that everybody longed to get back to, once having
been there. A woman, leaving it for years, watched it from the
ferryboat, and, weeping, said, "San Francisco, oh, my San Francisco, I am
leaving thee."
Will those who left it after the fire ever get back to their old city
again? We have already expressed our doubt of this. The old San
Francisco is probably gone, never to return. The new San Francisco will
be a cleaner, saner and safer city, destitute of its rookeries, its tenements
and its Chinatown. It will be a greater and more sightly city than that
of the past, but to those who knew and loved the old San Francisco—San
Francisco the captivating, the maddest, gayest, liveliest and most rollicking
in the country—there must be something impressibly sad to its old
inhabitants in the reflection that the new city of the Golden Gate can never
be quite the same as the haven of their early affections.
Plans to Rebuild San Francisco.
Almost as soon as the terrible conflagration had been checked
and gotten under control by the heroic efforts of the soldiers
and firemen, a little group of the leading citizens of the desolated city
had met in the office of Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz and had begun to plan the
restoration of their municipality. It was an admirable courage, bred in
the stock of those men who in 1849 left comfortable homes in the East to seek
their fortune in the Golden State, that inspired the loyal leaders of the
present day citizens to provide with far-seeing eyes for the rebuilding of
their homes and business houses with more orderly precision after the fire
than had been possible during the hustle of early days in a new city.
The old San Francisco was no more, and never could be recalled save as a
memory. The local color, atmosphere, that which might be termed the
feeling of the old city, vanished with the clustered houses, as rich in
tradition as the ancient missions in whose cloisters worshiped the Spanish
padre "before the Gringo came." Heartrending as it was to the citizens who
loved their homes and haunts to see them disappear into smoke, there was an
attraction about the city of the Golden Gate which endeared it to
all Americans.
One of San Francisco's charms was in its defiance of precedent. There
were hills to be conquered, and San Francisco' s expanding traffic hurled
itself at the face of them. It went up and up, with no thought of
finding a way around. So it happened that on some of the streets the
steepness was too great for horses. In the centre there are cable
roads, and on either side of the rails grass grows through the cobbles.
The earlier structures on the level were put together in haste. For the
most part they remained essentially unchanged until they fell with a
crash. True, they had become stained by time, unkempt, dwarfed by new
neighbors, but nobody desired to efface them. Away from the business
section houses appeared on the various hills, perched precariously near the
brink; houses reached by long flights and grown over with roses.
The bathing fogs touched them with gray. Moss grew on their
roofs. In the little, lofty yards calla lilies bloomed with the
profusion of weeds. The natural beauty of the site, the quaintness of
the commercial and social development of which it became the
centre, attracted the poet and the artist. It incited them to paint
the attractions and to sing the praises of their chosen home.
But the loyal sons of those brave pioneers who founded the metropolis
were not in the least daunted by the problem of raising from its ruins the
whole vast number of dwellings and business houses. The leaders of the
people, the men who had been identified with San Francisco since its early
days, and whose great fortunes were almost swept away by the cataclysm, lent
courage to all the wearied thousands by firm statements of their
optimism.
James D. Phelan, former Mayor of the city and one of its
richest capitalists, immediately announced his intention of rebuilding
his properties at Market and O'Farrell Streets, in the heart of the ruined
business district. William H. Crocker, one of the heaviest losers, a
nephew of Charles Crocker, who founded the Central Pacific Railroad with
Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford and others, stated emphatically that he
would put his shoulder to the wheel. On receiving the first news of the
disaster, and before he knew what his losses would amount to, he said:
"Mark my words, San Francisco will arise from these ashes a greater and
more beautiful city than ever. I don't take any stock in the belief of
some people that investors and residents will be panicky and afraid to build
up again. This calamity, terrible as it is, will mean nothing less than
a new and grander San Francisco. It is preposterous to suggest the
abandonment of the city. It is the natural metropolis of the Pacific
coast. God made it so. D. O. Mills, the Spreckels family,
everybody I know, have determined to rebuild and to invest more than ever
before. Burnham, the great Chicago architect, has been at work for a
year or more on plans to beautify San Francisco. Terrible as this
destruction has been, it serves to clear the way for the carrying out of
these plans. Why, even now we are figuring on rebuilding. More
than that, I am confident that, except for what fire has absolutely laid
waste, it will be found that the buildings are less injured than
was supposed. Plastering, ornamental work, glass and more or
less loose material has been shaken down, but the framework, I am
sure, will be found intact in many big buildings."
D. Ogden Mills, of New York, who owned enormous properties in
the stricken city, was equally confident.
"We will go ahead," said he, "and build the city, and build it so that
earthquakes will not shake it down and so fire will not destroy it, and we
will have a water system which will enable us to draw water from the sea for
fire extinguishing service and other municipal purposes. We will thus
have less to fear from the destruction of the land mains. The whole
point with all of us who own property down there is that we have to
build. To let it lie idle, piled with its ruins, would mean the
throwing away of money, and I am sure none of us intends to do that.
The city will go up like Baltimore did, and Galveston, and Charleston, and
Chicago, and there will be no lack of capital. California spirit and
California enterprise, which are always associated with the State
of California, will rise superior to this calamity."
George Crocker, elder brother of William H. Crocker; Archer
M. Huntington, son of Collis P. Huntington; Mrs. Herman Oelrichs, Mrs. W.
K. Vanderbilt, Jr., members of the wealthy Spreckels family and others all
expressed, before the great conflagration had ceased burning, the confident
expectation that the city would rise, Phoenix-like, from its ashes and become
more beautiful and prosperous than it had ever been in the past.
So complete was the calamity that the Government of the United States
lent a hand in the earliest work of restoration. On April 20th, two
days after the earthquake, Congress took immediate steps to repair or replace
all the public buildings damaged or destroyed in San Francisco. The
willingness of Congress to assist those in need of work by immediately
beginning the reconstruction of the Federal buildings was indicated when
Senator Scott, chairman of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds,
introduced a resolution calling upon the Secretary of the Treasury for full
information as to the exact condition of the various government buildings in
San Francisco, and instructing him to submit an estimate showing
the aggregate sum needed to repair or rebuild them. The
resolution suggested that steel frames be used in any new buildings.
This resolution was adopted. It was soon learned that the new
Post Office, the Mint and the old Customs House were
practically undamaged. The branch of the United States Mint, on Fifth
Street, and the new Post Office at Seventh and Mission Streets,
were striking examples of the superiority of workmanship put into Federal
buildings. The old Mint building, surrounded by a wide space of
pavement, was absolutely unharmed. The Mint made preparations to resume
business at once. The Post Office building also was virtually undamaged
by fire. The earthquake shock did some damage to the different
entrances to the building, but the walls were left standing in good
condition. President Roosevelt also sent a message to Congress asking
that $300,000 be at once appropriated to finish the Mare Island Navy Yard, in
order that employment might be given to the many workmen who were in
extreme need of money for the necessities of life.
It was a most fortunate circumstance that the property records in the
Hall of Records were unharmed either by earthquake or fire. Endless disputes
and litigation over the questions of ownerships would undoubtedly have
otherwise impeded the work of those sincerely anxious to repair their
shattered fortunes and opened the way for the unscrupulous to take unfair
advantage of the general chaos.
But the temper of the people was such that only the boldest would have
dared to use trickery for his own ends. Every man stood at the side of
his neighbor working for himself and for the good of all. Before the
embers were cool the owners of some of the damaged skyscrapers gave commands
to proceed instantly with their reconstruction. The Spreckels Building,
the Hayward Building, the St. Francis Hotel, the Merchants' Exchange and
structures that permitted it were ordered rushed into shape as quickly as
possible. And already contracts had been drawn up for other
steel-frame buildings to be erected with all speed. Many substantial
business men and property owners of San Francisco were in consultation
with the architects within a few days. While the work of clearing
away the debris went forward, a corps of draughtsmen was busily
occupied preparing plans for the new buildings to adorn the city.
Mayor Schmitz telegraphed to the Mayors of all leading cities, inquiring
how many architects or architectural draughtsmen could be induced to leave
for San Francisco at once, and hundreds of young men immediately responded to
the call. Experts of the several great contracting companies hurried to
the scene and were ready to deposit material and labor on the ground for the
work of restoration. Daniel H. Burnham, a leading architect of
Chicago, who had previously drawn plans for beautifying the city,
was summoned to superintend the work.
All the horses, mules and wagons obtainable were immediately pressed
into service to remove the debris and clear the streets so that traffic could
be resumed. Within a week after the first earthquake shock trolley cars
were running in the principal streets, telephone communication had been
re-established in the most needed quarters, electric lights were available
and business had begun again on a limited scale.
Yet, in spite of the indomitable courage of the citizens and
the efficient labor of the public officers and the utility companies, an
enormous amount of work remained. Virtually every bank in San Francisco
had to be rebuilt. Only the Market Street National Bank was left nearly
undamaged. An official list of the condition of the school buildings
throughout the city showed that twenty-nine school buildings were destroyed
and that forty-four were partially, at least, spared. Many of the
latter were so damaged that they had to be either pulled down or thoroughly
repaired, and arrangements were made to resume the short term in tents
erected in the parks, where thousands of the homeless had already found
temporary shelter. With these two vital classes of public
institutions prepared to care for the demands about to be made on
them, confidence was not lacking in other parts. Most of the
foundries and factories near the water front and south of Market
Street immediately called in all their employees and began to clear
away the wreckage and make ready for continuing business. Great
credit is due to the newspapers, nearly all of which continued their
daily issues without interruption, although their buildings, with
offices and printing plants, were entirely destroyed by the flames
which followed the earthquake. Those whose premises were
early threatened with destruction betook themselves to Oakland,
seven miles distant across the bay, and published their sheets from
the establishments of the Oakland papers. A thorough inspection
shows that comparatively little damage was done in the vicinity of
the Cliff. The Cliff House, which was at first reported to have
been hurled into the sea, not only stood, but the damage sustained by
it from the earthquake was slight. The famous Sutro baths,
located near the Cliff House, with the hundreds of thousands of square
feet of glass roofing, also were practically unharmed. Only a few
of the windows in the Sutro baths and the Cliff House were broken, and the
lofty chimney of the pumping plant of the former establishment was cracked
only a trifle. When the situation was finally summed up, however,
nearly three-fourths of the city had to be rebuilt or remodeled, and the cost
of doing this was enough to appal the strongest hearts.
Financially the prospect was encouraging. Not a bank lost
the contents of its fireproof vaults and remained practically unharmed, so
far as credit was concerned.
For a number of days it was impossible to open any strong boxes
on account of the great heat which the thick walls retained, and
this naturally caused some embarrassment and lack of ready money. Nearly
all of them, however, had strong connections in Eastern cities and large
balances to their credit in other banks of America and Europe. They
were also favored by the fact that the United States Mint and the
Sub-Treasury held between them some $245,000,000 in ready money. The
Secretary of the Treasury immediately deposited $10,000,000 to the credit of
the local banks, and financiers of the great business centres of the country
added to public confidence by prompt statements that they would facilitate
the reconstruction of the city by a liberal advancement of funds.
One prominent Eastern capitalist expressed the general conviction in the
following words:
"No great city, unless it dried up entirely from lack of commercial life
blood, was ever annihilated by such a disaster as that of
San Francisco. Pompeii and Herculaneum were not great cities in
the first place, and in the second, they were completely
covered, smothered as it were, with the ashes and molten lava of
the adjoining volcano, and nearly all of their inhabitants perished. If it
be admitted that three-fourths of the superstructures, so to speak, of San
Francisco, estimated according to valuation, is destroyed, we have yet the
fact remaining that the lives of only about one four-hundredth of its
population have been lost.
"San Francisco was not merely land and the buildings erected upon it,
but it was people, and one of the most active, most hopeful, most vivacious
human communities on the face of the earth. You cannot long discourage
such a community, unless you wipe out three-fourths of its members.
Will San Francisco rise again? Most certainly it will. Galveston
and Baltimore, not to mention Charleston, Boston and Chicago, showed the
spirit of material resurrection in American communities, sore-smitten by
calamity. After Galveston had been made a desert of sand and debris,
there were predictions that it would never rise again. What was
the outcome? A finer Galveston than before, and finer than many
years of slow improvement in the natural course would have made
it. Baltimore is busier commercially than it was before the great fire.
"San Francisco is exceedingly fortunate in the fact that its moneyed
institutions remain strong, with abundant supplies of funds. It is true
that many of them undoubtedly hold large numbers of real estate mortgages as
securities for loans, and that much of the property thus represented is now
in ashes. But with care and an accommodating spirit practically all of
those mortgaged can be so nursed that they will be made absolutely
good. The banks will be found to be only too eager to afford new loans
which will enable realty owners to rebuild. You will see San Francisco
rise a more splendid city than ever, and better prepared to resist
future earthquake shocks. Because it has had this dreadful visitation
is no reason for apprehension that another like it will come within the
life of the present generation, or two or three after. The destruction
of Lisbon in the middle of the eighteenth century and its subsequent immunity
from seismic damage is a reassuring example."
The municipality was in excellent financial condition to meet and rise
above the extraordinary needs of the situation. It had a bonded debt of
only $4,245,100, while its realty valuation was $402,127,261 and its
personalty $122,258,406. The question of issuing further amounts of
bonds was therefore one of the first measures considered by Mayor Schmitz and
his co-workers, and an appeal was made to the Federal Government to guarantee
the proposed loans, so that the most urgent work which lay in the
city's province could be undertaken at once and without an
excessive burden of interest.
The vast insurance loss was divided among 107 companies, and, though
only a little more than half the damage was covered by policies, the total
swelled toward the colossal sum of $150,000,000. Several of the largest
companies were seriously crippled by the disaster and some were forced into
liquidation. To the great relief of the entire country, nevertheless,
the financial situation was not severely affected, and there was every reason
to believe that the great bulk of the insurance would be paid.
The Earthquake Wave Felt Round the Earth.
The outbreak of earth forces at San Francisco did not stand
alone. There were others elsewhere at nearly the same time, the
whole seeming to indicate a general disturbance in the interior of
the earth's crust. Some scientists, indeed, declared that no
possible connection could exist between the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
and the earthquake at San Francisco, but others were inclined to
view certain facts in regard to recent seismic and volcanic activity
as, to say the least, suggestive.
As to the actual cause of the California earthquake, the
wisest confession we can make is that of ignorance, there being almost
as little known as to the origin, period and coming of earthquakes as when
Pliny wrote 1,800 years ago. The Roman observer knew that the tremor
passed like a wave through the surface of the earth; he knew that it had a
given direction, and he knew that certain regions were rife with seismic
disturbance. More he could not say, and when this is said all has been
said that is known today.
Setting aside these general considerations, let us return to
the question of the disaster at San Francisco on that fatal morning
of April 18th. The shock did not come unexpectedly. A month
previous there had been a severe earthquake in the Island of Formosa,
and many lives were lost there, while an enormous amount of damage
was done. Only a few days before the event in San Francisco there
was another earthquake in the same island. Still greater havoc
was caused by it than by the earthquake in March, but fewer lives
were lost, the reason being that the people were warned in time.
Early in April the eruption of Mount Vesuvius reached its height
and devastated the country around the volcano, covering an
enormous territory with ashes, and caused the loss of hundreds of
lives.
On Tuesday night, April 17th, word was received from
Piatigorsk, Circassia, that there had been two severe earthquake shocks
the previous day in Northern Caucasia. The same night a telegram
from Madrid said that the newspapers there reported that the long-dormant
volcano on Palma, the largest of the Canary Islands, was showing signs of
eruption, columns of smoke issuing from the crater.
WIDESPREAD EARTH TREMORS.
While scientists as a rule doubt that there was any
connection between these volcanic phenomena and the earthquake at
San Francisco, yet reports from the Mount Weather observation station in
Virginia, a few miles from Washington, show that the eruptions of Vesuvius
acted on the magnetic instruments by electro-magnetic waves in such a way as
to disturb the electrical potentials at that place. Be this as it may,
there is one remarkable circumstance in regard to all this activity.
All the places mentioned—Formosa, Southern Italy, Caucasia, and the Canary
Islands—lie within a belt bounded by lines a little north of the fortieth
parallel and a little south of the thirtieth parallel. San Francisco is
just south of the fortieth parallel, while Naples is just north of it. The
latitude of Calabria, where the terrible earthquakes occurred in 1905, is the
same as that of the territory affected by the recent earthquake in the United
States. This may or may not have some bearing on the question.
Whatever be thought of all this, one thing is certain, the earthquake
which laid San Francisco in ruins was felt the world over, wherever there
were instruments in position to detect and record it. The seismograph
in the government observatory at Washington showed that the first wave, on
April 18th, came at 8:19—equivalent to 5:19 at San Francisco; that at 8:25
there was a stronger wave motion, and that from 8:32 to 8:35 the recording
pen was carried off the paper. The vibrations did not entirely
cease until 12:35 P. M., during this period there having been nearly
half an inch of to and fro motion in the surface of the earth.
RECORDS OF FOREIGN OBSERVATIONS.
From far away New Zealand, on the same date, the
government seismograph at the capital, Wellington, recorded seismic waves
that apparently passed round the earth five times at intervals of
about four hours each.
Across the Atlantic, at Heidelberg, in Germany, the records
showed vibrations lasting one hour. At Sarayevo, in Bosnia, there was
a sharp shock at 11 A. M., undulating from west to east.
At Funfkirchen, in Hungary, at Laibach, in Austria, in the Isle of Wight,
off the coast of England, and all through Italy, from north to south, the
shocks were felt.
At Hancock, Mich., a shock was felt on April 19th a mile below
the surface in the Quincy mine of such severity that one man was
killed and four injured by a fall of rock loosened by the trembling of
the earth. There is no evidence, however, that this had any
connection with the California disaster, the dates not coinciding.
Turning to the Far East, across the Pacific, seismographs in
the Imperial University of Tokio showed that the earthquake was felt there
eleven minutes later than in San Francisco, and similar instruments in Manila
detected the arrival of the seismic waves twenty minutes after the San
Francisco shock. In this there was a slight difference in time compared
with Tokio, but, considering the distance, near enough to prove that the
disturbances came from the same source.
Not until the day following was any noticeable disturbance felt
in Honolulu, but on April 19th shocks were plainly felt for six minutes
and the water in the harbor rose rapidly. Panic seemed imminent just
before the shocks subsided. While earthquakes are by no means
infrequent in these islands, this was more severe than any recorded in recent
years, causing buildings to sway to and fro and partly demolishing some of
frail construction.
If, as the majority of men qualified to discuss earthquakes seem
to think, the San Francisco earthquake had no connection with
volcanic action, but was caused by what is technically known as a "fault"
in the formation of the crust of the earth, it seems easy enough
to account for these wave motions travelling round the earth.
How widely this may really have made itself felt it is not possible
to say. Several of the great earthquakes in Japan have been
recorded in the seismographs of the observatories on every continent and
in Australia, showing that in severe disturbances of this kind the whole
surface strata quiver, alike under the oceans and over the continents and
islands. At the time of a shock, of course, half of the world is in
darkness and asleep. This is taken to account for the fact that so far
only a few observatories have reported catching the San Francisco
vibrations.
The instruments invented for the recording of the motions of the earth's
crust are looked upon by scientists as the most delicate of all
machines. So highly sensitive are they, indeed, that the very slightest
vibratory motion is recorded perfectly. Even the tread of feet cannot
escape this instrument if sufficient to cause a vibration.
There are three classes of instruments for the automatic recording of
earth tremors, each with its own particular function. First is the
seismoscope, which will merely detect and record the fact that there has been
such a tremor. Some of these are so equipped as to indicate the time of
the disturbance.
Second, is the seismometer, the function of which is to measure
the maximum force of the shock, either with or without an indication
of its direction. The third instrument is the seismograph, which
is so arranged that it will accurately record the number,
succession, direction, amplitude and period of successive oscillations.
This last instrument is by far the most delicate of the three.
In the construction of this earthquake recording machine the maker must
so suspend a heavy body that when its normal position is disturbed in the
most infinitesimal degree no reactionary force will be developed tending to
restore it to its original position. The inventor has never been found who
could accomplish this suspension of a body to perfection. The
seismograph of today, however, has reached a stage of perfection where
close approximations are obtained in the records made.
Vesuvius Devastates the Region of Naples.
We have in other chapters described the terrible work of
Mount Vesuvius in the past, from the far-off era of the destruction
of Pompeii down to the end of the last century. There comes before
us now another frightful eruption, one of the greatest in its
history, that of 1906. For thirty years before this outbreak the
mighty volcano had been comparatively quiet, rarely ceasing, indeed,
to smoke and fume, but giving little indication of the vast forces buried
in its heart. It showed some sympathy with Mont Pelee in 1902, and
continued restless after that time, but it was not until about the middle of
February, 1906, that it became threatening, lava beginning to overflow from
the crater and make its lurid way down the mountain's side.
It was in the middle of the first week of April that these indications
rose to the danger point, the flow of lava suddenly swelling from a rivulet
to a river, pouring in a gleaming flood over the crater's rim, and meeting
the other streams that came streaming down the volcano's rugged flank.
While this went on the mountain remained comparatively quiet, there being no
explosions, though a huge cloud of volcanic ash and cinders rose high in
the air until it hung over the crater in the shape of an enormous
pine tree, while from it a shower of dust and sand, soon to
become terrible, began to descend upon the surrounding fields and
towns.
Dangerous as is Vesuvius at any time, the people of the vicinity dare
its perils for the allurement of its fertile soil. A ring of populous
villages encircles it, flourishing vineyards and olive groves extend on all
sides, and the hand of industry does not hesitate to attack its threatening
flanks. The intervals between its death-dealing throes are so long that
the peasants are always ready to dare destruction for the hope of winning the
means of life from its soil.
THE RIVERS OF LAVA.
All this locality was now a field of terror and death. Down on
the vineyards and villages poured the smothering ashes in an
ever increasing rain; toward them slowly and threateningly crawled
the fiery serpents of the lava streams; and from their homes
fled thousands of the terror-stricken people, frantic with horror
and dismay. A number of populous villages were threatened by the
lurid lava streams, the most endangered being Bosco Trecase, with
its 10,000 inhabitants. Toward this devoted town poured steadily
the irresistible flood of molten rock. The soldiers who had
been hurried to the front sought to divert its flow by digging a
wide ditch across its course and throwing up a high bank of earth,
but they worked in vain. The demon of destruction was not to be
robbed of its prey. The liquid stream advanced like a colossal serpent
of fire, turning its head like a crawling snake to the right and left, but
keeping steadily on toward the fated town. The ditch was filled; the
bank gave way; the first house was reached and burst into flames; the
creeping stream of fire pushed on to the next houses in its way; only then
did the despairing people desert their homes and flee for their lives,
carrying with them the little they could snatch of their treasured
possessions.
F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, who was present at this scene, thus
describes the flight of the terrified people:
"I saw men, women and children and infants, whose mothers carried them
at the breast or in their aprons, fleeing in an endless procession.
Dogs, too, and cats were on the carts, and sometimes even chickens, tied
together by the legs, and piles of mattresses and pillows and shapeless
bundles of clothes. All were white with dust. Under the lurid
glare I saw one old woman lying on her back across a cart, ghastly white and,
if not dead already of fear and heat and suffocation, certainly almost
gone. We ourselves could hardly breathe."
It was on Saturday, the 7th, that Bosco Trecase became the prey of the
river of molten rock. During that night and the following day the
crisis of the eruption came. The observatory on the mountain side was
occupied by Professor Matteucci, his assistant, Professor Perret, of New
York, and two domestics, all others having been sent away. Their
description of the scene in which they found themselves is vividly
picturesque. At midnight the situation in the observatory was
terrible. The forces of the earthquake were let loose and the ground
rocked so that it was almost impossible to stand. The roaring of the
main crater was deafening, while the volcano poured forth its contents like a
fountain, and the electric display was terrifying, constant claps of thunder
following the lurid flashes of lightning, which gave the sky a blood-red
hue.
Shortly after three o'clock in the morning the explosive energy of the
mighty mass culminated. The whole cone burst open with a tremendous
earthquake shock, from the heart of the recently silent mountain came a
deafening roar, and red-hot rocks, like the balls from nature's mighty
artillery, were hurled a half mile into the air, while a dense mass of ashes
and sand was flung to three or four times this height. All the next day
the terrible detonation kept up, and a hail of bullet-like stones poured
downward from the skies. Rarely has a more terrible Sunday been
seen. It was as if the demons of earth and air were let loose and were
seeking to destroy man and his puny works.
THE CRISIS OF THE ERUPTION.
This frightful explosion of the 8th of April was the worst of
the dreadful display of volcanic forces, but the work kept up
with diminishing intensity much of the following week. The ashes
and cinders continued to pour down in suffocating showers, covering
the ground to a depth of four or five feet in the vicinity of the volcano
and to a considerable depth at Naples, ten miles away. The sun
disappeared behind the thick cloud that filled the air, and the scene
resembled that described by Pliny more than eighteen hundred years
before.
Of Bosco Trecase nothing was left but the large stone church and a few
houses. Another river of lava reached the outskirts of Torre del Greco,
and a third stopped at the cemetery of Torre Annunziata. Those towns escaped,
but thousands of acres of fertile cultivated land, with farm houses and
stock, were destroyed. The peninsular railway up the mountain was
ruined and the large hotel burned. One writer tells the following tale
of what he saw on that fatal Saturday and Sunday:
"On the road I met hundreds of families in flight, carrying their few
miserable possessions. The spectacle of collapsing carts and fainting
women was frequently seen. When one reached the lava stream a
stupefying spectacle presented itself. From a point on the mountain
between the towns I saw four rivers of molten fire, one of which, 200 feet
wide and over 40 deep, was moving slowly and majestically onward, devouring
vineyards and olive groves. I witnessed the destruction of a farm house
enveloped on three sides by lava. Immediately overhead the great crater
was belching incandescent rock and scoria for an incredible distance.
The whole scene was wreathed with flames, and a perpetual roar was
heard. Ever and anon the cone of the volcano was encircled with
vivid electric phenomena, amid which a downpour of liquid fire on
all sides of the crater was revealed in magnificent awfulness. In
the evening there was a frightful shock of earthquake, which was repeated
at two o'clock on Sunday morning. Simultaneously the lava streams
redoubled their onrush, and men, women and children fled precipitately toward
the sea. The lava had invaded the road behind them."
A REIGN OF TERROR.
The great loss of life was due to the vast fall of ashes,
which crushed in hundreds of roofs and buried the occupants within
the ruins of their homes. In all the neighboring towns buildings
were destroyed in great numbers, an early estimate being that fully 5,000
houses had been partly crushed or utterly destroyed. On the Ottajano
side of the mountain, where the ashes fell in greatest profusion, all the
houses of the villages were damaged, and Ottajano itself was left a wreck,
several hundred dead bodies being taken from its ruins. In Naples the
ash fall was so incessant that those who could afford it wore automobile
coats, caps and goggles, while the people generally sought to save their eyes
and faces by the aid of paper masks and umbrellas. The drivers of
trolley cars were obliged to wear masks of some transparent material under
the vizors of their caps.
DISASTERS AT SAN GIUSEPPE AND NAPLES.
There were two special disasters attended by serious loss of
life. On the 9th, while a congregation of two hundred or more
were attending mass in the church at San Giuseppe, the roof crushed
in from the weight of ashes upon it and fell upon the worshippers below,
few or none of whom escaped unhurt. Fifty-four dead bodies were taken
from the ruins and a large number were severely injured. The Mayor of the
town was dismissed from his office for leaving his post of duty in the face
of danger.
The second disaster, one of the same character, took place
at Naples. This was on Tuesday, April 10th. Just previous to it
the people had been marching in religious processions through the streets,
to render thanks for the apparent cessation of the activity of
Vesuvius. Motley but picturesque processions were these, headed by boys
carrying candles, which burned simply in the full sunshine and bearing aloft
images of the Madonna or saints, clad in gorgeous robes of cheap blue or
yellow satin. Their joy was suddenly changed to grief by tidings of a
frightful disaster. The roof of the Monte Oliveto market, fronting on the
Toledo, the main thoroughfare, had suddenly crushed in, burying more than
200 people beneath its heavy fall.
The market had been crowded with buyers and their children, and it was
the busiest hours of the day in the great roofed courtyard, covering a space
600 feet square, when, with scarcely a tremor of warning, there came a
frightful crash and a dense cloud of dust covered the scene, from out of
which came heartrending screams of agony. The volcanic ash which,
unnoticed, had gathered thickly on the roof, had broken it in by its
weight.
The news set the people frantic with grief and indignation.
They insisted that the authorities knew that the roof was unsafe and
had neglected their duty. Cursing and screaming in their
intense excitement, they surrounded the market, endeavoring with
frantic haste to remove the heavy beams from beneath which came
the appealing calls for help, many of the rescuers sobbing aloud as they
worked. It required a large force of police and soldiers to keep them
back and permit the firemen and other trained workers to carry on more
systematically the work of relief. Twelve persons proved to have been
killed, two fatally injured, twenty-four seriously hurt and over a hundred
badly bruised and cut. Among these were many children, whose parents
had sent them to do the marketing without a dream of danger, and the grief of
the parents was intense. The Duke of Aosta, Prefect of Naples, directed
the work of rescue, while his wife assisted in the care of the injured. As
the Duchess bent in the hospital to give a cooling drink to a badly bruised
little girl she felt a kiss upon her hand. Looking down, she saw a
woman kneeling at her feet, who gratefully said: "Your Excellency, she is all
I have. I am a widow. May God reward you."
While this scene of horror was taking place in Naples the fate of the
town and villages grouped around the foot of the volcano seemed as hopeless
as ever. Early on the 10th the showers of ashes and streams of lava
diminished and almost ceased, but later the same day they began again, and
the terrified inhabitants feared that a catastrophe like that which buried
Pompeii and Herculaneum was about to visit them. The lava which reached
the cemetery of Torre Annunziata turned in the direction of Pompeii as if to
freshly entomb that exhumed city of the past. A violent storm
of sulphurous rain fell at San Giuseppe, Vesuviana and Sariano, and on all
sides the fall of sand and ashes came on again in full strength. Even
with the sun shining high in the heavens the light was a dim yellow, in the
midst of which the few persons who still haunted the stricken towns moved
about in the awful stillness of desolation like gray ghosts, their clothing,
hair and beards covered with ashes.
THE ERUPTION RESUMED.
A typical case was that of Torre del Greco. Though for
thirty hours the place had been deserted, a few ghostly figures could
be seen at intervals when the vivid flashes of lightning illuminated the
gloom-covered scene, wandering desolately about, hungry and thirsty, their
throats parched by smoke and dust, yet unable to tear themselves away from
the ruins of their late comfortable homes.
So deep was the ash fall that railway or tramway travel to the inner
circle of towns was impossible, and the great depth of fallen dust choked the
roads so as to render travel by carriage or on foot very difficult. A
party of officials made a tour of inspection by automobile, visiting a number
of the town, but were prevented by the state of the roads from reaching
others. Ottajano was thus cut off from travel, and a heavy fall of
ashes followed the officials in their retreat. At Bosco Trecase the
lava had gathered into a lake, already growing solid on top, but a mass of
liquid rock beneath.
The lava carried vast masses of burnt stone and sulphur on its surface,
like dross on melted lead, and nothing was visible toward Bosco Trecase but
endless acres of dark scoriae, broken here and there by the greenish, curling
smoke of sulphur. At one point a great cone pine tree, torn up by its
roots and turned to black charcoal, stuck out of the mass at a sharp
angle. The air was almost unbearable, the heat intense, and few could
long bear the dangers and discomfort of the situation.
SCENES OF HORROR.
The greatest depth of ashes encountered was in the vicinity
of Ottajano. Here large areas were buried to a depth of several
feet. Soldiers had been sent there with military carts,
carrying provisions and surgical appliances, with orders to lend their
aid in the work of relief. They found it almost impossible to
make their way through the deep fine dust, and the tales of horror
and heroism they had to tell resembled those that must of old have
been borne to Rome by the fleeing inhabitants of Pompeii.
Efforts were made to remove the children and old persons in the carts,
but when these had gone a few hundred feet it was found that, although there
were four horses harnessed to each vehicle, they could not pull their loads
through the ashes. This caused a panic among the children, who expected
to be buried in the incessant fall from the volcano, and they fled in all
directions in the darkness and blinding rain. Searching parties went
after them, but in spite of continuous shouting and calling no trace was
found of the little ones, and numbers of the children were
undoubtedly smothered by the ashes and sand.
Many of the inhabitants had been buried in the ruins of their houses,
and the scenes when the victims were unearthed were often piteous and
terrible. The positions of the bodies showed that the victims had died
while in a state of great terror, the faces being convulsed with fear.
Three bodies were found in a confessional of one of the fallen
churches. One body was that of an old woman who was sitting with her
right arm raised as though to ward off the advancing danger. The second
was that of a child about eight years old. It was found dead in a
position, which would indicate that the child had fallen with a little dog
close to it and had died with one arm raised across its face, to protect
itself and pet from the crumbling ruins. The third body, that of a
woman, was reduced to an unrecognizable mass. These three victims were
reverently laid side by side while a procession of friends and
relatives offered up prayers beside them.
One soldier rode his horse through the ashes reaching up to its flanks,
calling out, "Who wants help?" He was rewarded by hearing a woman's
voice reply in weak tones and, springing from his horse, he floundered
through the ashes to the ruined walls of a house from which the voice seemed
to come. As he made his way through the soft, treacherous layer of
scoriae which surrounded the destroyed habitation, and with difficulty worked
his way toward the building the soldier shouted words of encouragement and,
climbing over a heap of ruins and braving a toppling wall, entered the
building. In the cellar he found the bodies of three children. Near
them was a woman, barely alive, who by almost superhuman efforts for
hours had succeeded in freeing herself from a mass of debris which
had fallen upon her. The soldier picked the woman up in his arms
and carried her to a place of safety. It was found that both legs
were broken and that she had been badly crushed about the body.
Some extraordinary escapes from death took place. A man and
his four children were rescued after having been lost in the ash-covered
wilderness for fifty-six hours. They were terribly exhausted, and were
reduced almost to skeletons.
Robert Underwood Johnson, one of the editors of the "Century Magazine,
who happened to be in Rome at the time of the eruption, made one of a party
who ventured as near the scene of destruction as they could safely
approach. From his graphic story of his experiences we copy some of the
most interesting details.
AN AMERICAN OBSERVER.
"We caught a train for Torre Annunziata, three miles this side
of Pompeii and two miles from the southern end of the wedge of lava which
destroyed Bosco Trecase. We had a magnificent view of the eruption,
eight miles away. Rising at an angle of fifty degrees, the vast mass of
tumult roundness was beautifully accentuated by the full moon, shifting
momentarily into new forms and drifting south in low, black clouds of ashes
and cinders reaching to Capri. At Torre del Greco we ran under this
terrifying pall, apparently a hundred feet above, the solidity of which was
soon revealed in the moonlight. The torches of the railway guards added
to the effect, but greatly relieved the sulphurous darkness.
"We reached Torre Annunziata at three in the morning. There
was little suggestion of a disaster as we trudged through the
sleeping town to the lava, two miles away. The brilliant moon gave us
a superb view of the volcano, a gray-brown mass rising, expanding
and curling in with a profile like a monstrous cyclopean face.
But nothing in mythology gives a suggestion of the fascination of
this awful force, presenting the sublime beauty above, but in its descent
filled with the mysterious malignance of God's underworld.
"We reached the lava at a picturesque cypress-planted cemetery on the
northern boundary of Torre Annunziata. It was as if the dead had
effectually cried out to arrest the crushing river of flames which pitilessly
engulfed the statue of St. Anne with which the people of Bosco Reale tried to
stay it, as at Catania the veil of St. Agathe is said to have stayed a
similar stream from Mount Etna.
"We climbed on the lava. It was cool above but still alive
with fire below. We could see dimly the extent of the
destruction beyond the barrier of brown which had enclosed the streets,
torn down the houses, invaded the vineyards and broken Cook's railways. A
better idea of the surroundings was obtained at dawn from the railway.
We saw north what was left of Bosco Trecase—a great, square stone church and
a few houses inland in a sea of dull, brown lava. North and east rose a
thousand patches of blue smoke like swamp miasma. All was dull and
desolate slag, with nowhere the familiar serpentine forms of the old lava
streams. In terrible contrast with the volcanic evidences were strong
cypresses and blooming camelias in a neighboring cemetery.
"We ate a hasty luncheon before sunrise, when the great beauty of the
scene was revealed. The column now seemed higher and more massive,
rising to three times the height of Vesuvius. Each portion had a
concentric motion and new aspects. The south edges floating toward the
sea showed exquisite curved surfaces, due to the upper moving current.
It was like the decoration of the side of a great sarcophagus. As a
yellow dust hangs over Naples and hides the volcano, I count myself fortunate
to have seen all day from leeward this spectacle of changing, undiminishing
beauty.
"The wedge of cultivated land ruined east of the volcano extended at
least ten miles, with a width of twenty or thirty miles. Fancy a rich
and thickly populated country of vineyards lying under three to six inches of
ashes and cinders of the color of chocolate with milk, while above, to the
west, the volcano in full activity is distributing to the outer edges of the
circle the same fate, and you will get an idea of the desolate impression of
the scene, a tragedy colossal and heartrending. Like that of Calabria,
it enlists the sympathy of the civilized world. It takes time
for such a calamity to be realized.
"Two miles below San Giuseppe we struck cinders which the soldiers were
shoveling, making a narrow road for the refugees. Our wagon driver
begged off from completing his contract to take us to San Giuseppe. We
had not the heart to insist, so the rest of the journey to the railway at
Palma, eight miles, was made laboriously on foot for three hours through
sliding cinders.
"In many places temporary shelters had been built by the roadside, like
children's playhouses. Here women were huddled with their bedding,
awaiting the coming of supplies which the army had begun to distribute.
The men were largely occupied with shoveling cinders from the stronger roofs
and floors into heaps three to six feet deep along the roadside. Many
two-wheeled carts loaded with salvage, drawn by donkeys or pushed by
peasants, were making their way along, the women with bundles on their heads
or carrying poultry.
"In the square of San Giuseppe was an encampment of soldiers, with low
tents. Near a destroyed church, in coarse yellow linen shrouds, were
the bodies of thirty-three of the persons who there lost their lives.
The peasants were sad, but uncomplaining; in fact, for so excitable a people
they were wonderfully calm. As evidence of the thrift and self-respect
of these, we were not once asked for alms during the afternoon."
THE KING AT THE FRONT.
The Italian Government did all it could at the moment to
alleviate the horrors of the situation, sending money to be expended
in relief work and dispatching high officials of the government to give
aid and encouragement by their presence. The King, Victor Emmanuel, and
Queen Helene reached the scene of destruction as early as possible and lent
their personal assistance to the work of rescue.
Obliged to leave his automobile, which could not move over
the cinder-choked road, the King went forward with difficulty
on horseback, the animal floundering through four feet of ashes, stumbling
into holes, and half blinded by the fall of dust and cinders.
"How did you escape?" he asked a priest whom he met in his journey.
"I put myself in safety," was the reply.
"What do you mean?" asked the King.
"Realizing the danger, I left Nola."
"What!" cried the King, with a flush of anger. "You, a minister
of God, were not here to share the danger of your people and administer
the last sacraments? You did very wrong and forgot your duty."
Reaching Ottejano, the King did what he could to expedite the work of
rescue at that central point of disaster, more than a hundred dead bodies
being taken from the ruins in his presence. He stood with set pale face
watching the removal of the victims and directing the movement of the
workers. During his visit at the front he inspected the temporary camp
hospitals, in which the soldiers were caring for the injured and suffering,
speaking to the poor victims, giving them what comfort he could, and asking
what he could do to relieve their distress. Every request or desire
was received with sympathy and orders given to have it fulfilled.
A pitiful scene took place when the King bent over a poor man, whose
right leg had been amputated, and asked what he could do to comfort and aid
him in his affliction.
"Send me my son, who is serving as a soldier," said the
maimed peasant.
The King, visibly affected, clasped the old man's hand
and exclaimed:
"My poor fellow! I can do much, but to grant your request
would mean breaking the laws, which I must be the first to respect.
I would give anything I have were it possible by so doing to send your son
to you, but I cannot do so."
While the King was thus engaged at the scenes of desolation,
Queen Helene visited the charitable institutions at Naples and
inspected the places where the refugees were housed, doing what she could
to improve conditions and add to the comfort of the sufferers.
The Princess of Schleswig-Holstein, who was in Naples, made an automobile
visit to the afflicted towns, but the motor broke down, and she was forced to
return on foot, walking a distance of twelve miles through the ashes and
displaying a power of endurance that surprised the natives.
THE CANOPY OF DUST.
By Friday, April 13th, the eruption was practically at an
end. Vesuvius had spent itself in the enormous convulsion of the 7th
and 8th and the subsequent minor explosions and had returned to its normal
state, ceasing to give any signs of life, except the cloud of smoke which
still rose from its crater and spread like a thick curtain over and around
the mountain. Looked at from Naples, there was none of the familiar
aspects of the volcano, with its output of smoke and ashes by day and fiery
gleam by night. Now it lay buried in darkness and obscurity, clothed in
a dense pall of smoke. At Rome there was sunshine, but twenty miles
south hung a misty veil, and twenty-five miles above Naples a zone of
semi-obscurity began, blotting out the sun, whose light trickled through with
a sickly glare. Everything was whitened with powdery dust; pretty
white villas were daubed and dripping with mud, and people were
busy shoveling the ashes from their roofs.
The crowds at the stations resembled millers, their clothes
flour covered; the Campania presented the appearance of a Dakota
prairie after a blizzard of snow, though everything was gray instead
of white. The ashes lay in drifts knee deep. As the volcano
was approached semi-night replaced the day, the gloom being so deep that
telegraph poles twenty feet away could not be seen. Breathing was
difficult, and the smoke made the eyes water. At Naples, however, a
favorable wind had cleared the air of smoke, the sun shone brightly, and the
versatile people were happy once more. The goggles and eye-screens had
disappeared, but the streets were anything but comfortable, for some six
thousand men were at work clearing the ashes from the roofs and main streets
and piling them in the middle of the narrow streets, making the passage of
vehicles very difficult and the sidewalks far from comfortable for
foot passengers.
But while brightness and joy reigned at Naples, there were
gruesome scenes within the volcanic zone. At Bosco Trecase soldiers
carried on the work of exhumation, being able to work only an hour at
a time on account of the advanced stage of decomposition of
the bodies. Many of these were shapeless, unrecognizable masses
of flesh and bones, while others were little disfigured. To
lessen the danger of an epidemic the bodies were buried as quickly
as possible in quicklime.
On Sunday, the 15th, the searchers at Ottejano were surprised at finding
two aged women still alive, after six days' entombment in the ruins.
They were among those who had been buried by the falling walls a week
before. The rafters of the house had protected them, and a few morsels
of food in their pockets aided to keep them alive. At some points there
the ashes were ten feet deep. At San Giuseppe bodies of women were
found in whose hands were coins and jewels, and one woman held a jewelled
rosary. This recalls the results of exploration at Herculaneum and
Pompeii, where were similar instances of death overtaking the victims of
the volcano while fleeing with their jewels in their hands.
It is interesting to learn that two men stood heroically to their post
of duty during the whole scene of the explosion, Professor Matteucci,
Director of the Royal Observatory, and his American assistant, Professor
Frank A. Perret, of New York. Though the building occupied by them was
exposed to the full force of the rain of stones from the burning mountain,
they remained undauntedly at their post through that week of terror. On
the 14th some of that venturesome fraternity, the newspaper correspondents,
reached their eyrie on the highest habitable point on Vesuvius and heard
the story of their experiences.
THE HEROES OF THE OBSERVATORY.
For several days Professors Matteucci and Perret and their
two servants had been cut off from the outside world and bombarded by the
volcano, their rations consisting of bread, cheese and dried onions, until on
Friday a hardy guide was induced to push through to them with some
provisions. During the eruption the Professor had kept at his
instruments, taking observations day and night and making calculations in the
midst of the inferno. Roughly dressed, he looked like a Western cowboy
after a hard ride in a dust storm. The portico where he stood was knee deep
in ashes, and from the observatory terrace narrow paths had been cut through
the ashes, but as far as the eye could reach an ocean of ashes and
twisted rivers were alone visible, with Vesuvius rising grimly in
the midst. The great monster was enveloped in a cloak of white, as
if buried under a snowstorm, its surface being here and there slit with
gulches in which lava ran. At the bottom of one of those gulches lay
the wrecked remnants of the peninsular railway, a portion of its twisted
cable protruding through the ashes. As the correspondents ascended the
mountain they were surprised by the apparition of natives, men wrinkled with
age, who emerged from dugouts just below the observatory and offered them
milk and eggs, just as if they were ordinary visitors to the volcano.
As they descended they heard the sound of a mandolin from one of
these dugouts. Evidently Vesuvius had no terrors for these
case-hardened veterans.
We have already told the story gleaned by the correspondents from the
daring scientists. Matteucci completed his record of boldness on
Friday, the 13th, by climbing to a point far above the observatory, at the
imminent risk of his life, to observe the conditions then existing.
From what he says he believed the end of the disturbance near, though he did
not venture to predict. As for the ashes, which a light wind was then
blowing in a direction away from Naples, he said: "The ill wind is now
blowing good to other places, for ashes are the best fertilizer it is
possible to use. It is merely a question just now of having too much of a
good thing."
This is a fact so far as the volcanic ash is concerned.
An examination of the ashes a few days ago shows that they will prove an
active and valuable fertilizer. The fertile slopes of Vesuvius have
ever been an allurement to the vine-grower, four crops a year being a
temptation no possible danger could drive him from, and as soon as the
mountain grows surely peaceful after this eruption, we shall find its farmers
risking again the chance of its uncertain temper. But this is not the
case with the land covered with lava and cinders. Time for their
disintegration is necessary before they can be brought under cultivation, and
this is a matter of years. After the great eruption of 1871-72 the land
covered with cinders did not bear crops for seven years, and there is no
reason that they will do so sooner on the present occasion. So for
years to come much of the volcanic soil must remain a barren and
desert void.
The Great Lisbon and Calabrian Earthquakes.
To our account of the great earth convulsions of San Francisco it is
in place to append a description of some similar events of older date.
It is due to the same causes, whatever these causes may be, the imprisoned
forces within the earth acting over great distances during the earthquake,
while they are concentrated within some limited space when the volcano begins
its work. The earthquake is the most terrible to mankind of all the
natural agencies of destruction. While the volcano usually has a
greater permanent effect upon surface conditions, it is, as a rule, much
less destructive to human life, the earthquake often shaking down
cities and burying all their inhabitants in one common grave.
Violent earthquakes are also of far more frequent occurrence
than destructive volcanic eruptions, many hundreds of them having
taken place during the historic period.
While the earthquake is only indirectly connected with the subject of
our work, it seems desirable to make some mention of it here, at least so far
as relates to those terrible convulsions whose destructiveness has given them
special prominence in the history of great disasters. Ancient notable
examples are those which threw down the famous Colossus of Rhodes and the
Pharos of Alexandria. The city of Antioch was a terrible sufferer from this
affliction, it having been devastated some time before the Christian era,
while in the year 859 more than 15,000 of its houses were destroyed.
Of countries subject to earthquakes, Japan has been an especial sufferer,
in some cases mountains or islands being elevated in association with shocks;
in others, great tracts of land being swallowed up by the sea. The
number of deaths in some of these instances was enormous.
Numerous thrilling examples of the destructive work of the earthquake at
various periods are on record. Of these we have given elsewhere a
tabular list of the more important, and shall confine ourselves to a few
striking examples of its destructive action. In the record of great
earthquakes, one of the most famous is that which in 1755 visited the city of
Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, and left that populous, place in ruin and
dire distress. It may be well to recall the details of this dire event to
the memories of our readers.
THE GREAT LISBON EARTHQUAKE
On the night of the 31st of October, 1755, the citizens of the
fair city of Lisbon lay down to sleep, in merciful ignorance of what
was awaiting them on the morrow. The morning of the 1st of
November dawned, and gave no sign of approaching calamity. The sun rose
in its brightness, the warmth was genial, the breezes gentle, the
sky serene. It was All Saints' Day—a high festival of the Church
of Rome. The sacred edifices were thronged with eager crowds, and
the ceremonies were in full progress, when the assembled throngs
were suddenly startled from their devotions. From the ground
beneath came fearful sounds that drowned the peal of the organ and
the voices of the choirs. These underground thunders having
rolled away, an awful silence ensued. The panic-stricken multitudes
were paralyzed with terror. Immediately after the ground began to
heave with a long and gentle swell, producing giddiness and
faintness among the people. The tall piles swayed to and fro, like
willows in the wind. Shrieks of horror rose from the terrified
assembly. Again the earth heaved, and this time with a longer and
higher wave. Down came the ponderous arches, the stately columns,
the massive walls, the lofty spires, tumbling upon the heads of
priests and people. The graven images, the deified wafers, and they
who had knelt in adoration before them—the worshipped and the worshippers
alike—were in a moment buried under one undistinguishable mass of horrible
ruins. Only a few, who were near the doors, escaped to tell the
tale.
It fared no better with those who had remained in their dwellings. The
terrible earth-wave overthrew the larger number of the private houses in the
city, burying their inhabitants under the crumbling walls. Those who
were in the streets more generally escaped, though some there, too, were
killed by falling walls.
The sudden overthrow of so many buildings raised vast volumes of fine
dust, which filled the atmosphere and obscured the sun, producing a dense
gloom. The air was full of doleful sounds—the groans of agony from the
wounded and the dying, screams of despair from the horrified survivors, wails
of lamentation from the suddenly bereaved, dismal howlings of dogs, and
terrified cries of other animals.
In two or three minutes the clouds of dust fell to the ground,
and disclosed the scene of desolation which a few seconds had wrought. The
ruin, though general, was not universal. A considerable number of
houses were left standing—fortunately tenantless—for a third great
earth-wave traversed the city, and most of the buildings which had withstood
the previous shocks, already severely shaken, were entirely overthrown.
WATER ADDS TO THE DESTRUCTION
The last disaster filled the surviving citizens with the impulse
of flight. The more fortunate of them ran in the direction of
the open country, and succeeded in saving their lives; but a
great multitude rushed down to the harbor, thinking to escape by
sea. Here, however, they were met by a new and unexpected peril.
The tide, after first retreating for a little, came rolling in with
an immense wave, about fifty feet in height, carrying with it
ships, barges and boats, and dashing them in dire confusion upon
the crowded shore. Overwhelmed by this huge wave, great numbers
were, on its retreat, swept into the seething waters and drowned. A
vast throng took refuge on a fine new marble quay, but recently completed,
which had cost much labor and expense. This the sea- wave had spared,
sweeping harmless by. But, alas! it was only for a moment. The
vast structure itself, with the whole of its living burden, sank
instantaneously into an awful chasm which opened underneath. The mole
and all who were on it, the boats and barges moored to its sides, all of them
filled with people, were in a moment ingulfed. Not a single corpse, not
a shred of raiment, not a plank nor a splinter floated to the surface, and a
hundred fathoms of water covered the spot. To the first great
sea-wave several others succeeded, and the bay continued for a long time
in a state of tumultuous agitation.
About two hours after the first overthrow of the buildings, a
new element of destruction came into play. The fires in the
ruined houses kindled the timbers, and a mighty conflagration, urged by
a violent wind, soon raged among the ruins, consuming
everything combustible, and completing the wreck of the city. This
fire, which lasted four days, was not altogether a misfortune.
It consumed the thousands of corpses which would otherwise have tainted
the air, adding pestilence to the other misfortunes of the survivors.
Yet they were threatened with an enemy not less appalling, for famine stared
them in the face. Almost everything eatable within the precincts of the
city had been consumed. A set of wretches, morever, who had escaped
from the ruins of the prisons, prowled among the rubbish of the houses in
search of plunder, so that whatever remained in the shape of provisions
fell into their hands and was speedily devoured. They also broke
into the houses that remained standing, and rifled them of
their contents. It is said that many of those who had been only
injured by the ruins, and might have escaped by being extricated,
were ruthlessly murdered by those merciless villains.
The total loss of life by this terrible catastrophe is estimated
at 60,000 persons, of whom about 40,000 perished at once, and
the remainder died afterwards of the injuries and privations
they sustained. Twelve hundred were buried in the ruins of the
general hospital, eight hundred in those of the civil prison, and
several thousands in those of the convents. The loss of property
amounted to many millions sterling.
WIDE-SPREAD DESTRUCTION
Although the earth-wave traversed the whole city, the shock was felt
more severely in some quarters than in others. All the older part of
the town, called the Moorish quarter, was entirely overthrown; and of the
newer part, about seventy of the principal streets were ruined. Some
buildings that withstood the shocks were destroyed by fire. The
cathedral, eighteen parish churches, almost all the convents, the halls of
the inquisition, the royal residence, and several other fine palaces of the
nobility and mansions of the wealthy, the custom-houses, the warehouses
filled with merchandise, the public granaries filled with corn, and
large timber yards, with their stores of lumber, were either overthrown or
burned.
The king and court were not in Lisbon at the time of this
great disaster, but were living in the neighborhood at the castle
of Belem, which escaped injury. The royal family, however, were
so alarmed by the shocks, that they passed the following night
in carriages out of doors. None of the officers of state were
with them at the time. On the following morning the king hastened
to the ruined city, to see what could be done toward restoring
order, aiding the wounded, and providing food for the hungry.
The royal family and the members of the court exerted themselves to the
uttermost, the ladies devoting themselves to the preparation of lint and
bandages, and to nursing the wounded, the sick, and the dying, of whom the
numbers were overwhelming. Among the sufferers were men of quality and
once opulent citizens, who had been reduced in a moment to absolute
penury. The kitchens of the royal palace, which fortunately remained
standing, were used for the purpose of preparing food for the starving
multitudes. It is said that during the first two or three days a pound
of bread was worth an ounce of gold. One of the first measures of the
government was to buy up all the corn that could be obtained in the
neighborhood of Lisbon, and to sell it again at a moderate price, to those
who could afford to buy, distributing it gratis to those who had nothing to
pay.
For about a month afterward earthquake shocks continued, some of them
severe. It was several months before any of the citizens could summon
courage to begin rebuilding the city. But by degrees their confidence
returned. The earth had relapsed into repose, and they set about the
task of rebuilding with so much energy, that in ten years Lisbon again became
one of the most beautiful capitals of Europe.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LISBON EARTHQUAKE
The most distinguishing peculiarities of this earthquake were
the swallowing up of the mole, and the vast extent of the earth's surface
over which the shocks were felt. Several of the highest mountains in
Portugal were violently shaken, and rent at their summits; huge masses
falling from them into the neighboring valleys. These great fractures
gave rise to immense volumes of dust, which at a distance were mistaken for
smoke by those who beheld them. Flames were also said to have been
observed: but if there were any such, they were probably electrical flashes
produced by the sudden rupture of the rocks.
The portion of the earth's surface convulsed by this earthquake
is estimated by Humboldt to have been four times greater than the whole
extent of Europe. The shocks were felt not only over the Spanish
peninsula, but in Morocco and Algeria they were nearly as violent. At a
place about twenty-four miles from the city of Morocco, there is said to have
occurred a catastrophe much resembling what took place at the Lisbon
mole. A great fissure opened in the earth, and an entire village, with
all its inhabitants, upwards of 8,000 in number, were precipitated into
the gulf, which immediately closed over its prey.
EARTHQUAKES IN CALABRIA
Of the numerous other examples of destructive earthquakes
which might be chosen from Old World annals, it will not be amiss
to append a brief account of those which took place in Calabria, Italy, in
1783. These, while less wide-spread in their influence, were much
longer in duration than the Lisbon cataclysm, since they continued, at
intervals, from the 5th of February until the end of the year. The
shocks were felt all over Sicily and as far north as Naples, but the area of
severe convulsion was comparatively limited, not exceeding five hundred
square miles.
The centre of disturbance seems to have been under the town of Oppido in
the farther Calabria, and it extended in every direction from that spot to a
distance of about twenty-two miles, with such violence as to overthrow every
city, town and village lying within that circle. This ruin was
accomplished by the first shock on the 5th of February. The second, of
equal violence, on the 28th of March, was less destructive, only because
little or nothing had been left for it to overthrow.
At Oppido the motion was in the nature of a vertical upheaval of the
ground, which was accompanied by the opening of numerous large chasms, into
some of which many houses were ingulfed, the chasms closing over them again
almost immediately. The town itself was situated on the summit of a
hill, flanked by five steep and difficult slopes; it was so completely
overthrown by the first shock that scarcely a fragment of wall was left
standing. The hill itself was not thrown down, but a fort which
commanded the approach to the place was hurled into the gorge below. It
was on the flats immediately surrounding the site of the town and on the
rising grounds beyond them that the great fissures and chasms were
opened. On the slope of one of the hills opposite the town there appeared
a vast chasm, in which a large quantity of soil covered with vines and
olive-trees was engulfed. This chasm remained open after the shock, and
was somewhat in the form of an amphitheatre, 500 feet long and 200 feet in
depth.
MOST CALAMITOUS OF THE LANDSLIPS
The most calamitous of the landslips occurred on the sea-coast
of the Straits of Messina, near the celebrated rock of Scilla, where huge
masses fell from the tall cliffs, overwhelming many villas and gardens.
At Gian Greco a continuous line of precipitous rocks, nearly a mile in
length, tumbled down. The aged Prince of Scilla, after the first great
shock on the 5th of February, persuaded many of his vassals to quit the
dangerous shore, and take refuge in the fishing boats—he himself showing the
example. That same night, however, while many of the people were asleep
in the boats, and others on a flat plain a little above the sea-level,
another powerful shock threw down from the neighboring Mount Jaci a
great mass, which fell with a dreadful crash, partly into the sea,
and partly upon the plain beneath. Immediately the sea rose to
a height of twenty feet above the level ground on which the people were
stationed, and rolling over it, swept away the whole multitude. This
immense wave then retired, but returned with still greater violence, bringing
with it the bodies of the men and animals it had previously swept away,
dashing to pieces the whole of the boats, drowning all that were in them, and
wafting the fragments far inland. The prince with 1,430 of his people
perished by this disaster.
It was on the north-eastern shore of Sicily, however, that the greatest
amount of damage was done. The first severe shock, on the 5th of
February, overthrew nearly the whole of the beautiful city of Messina, with
great loss of life. The shore for a considerable distance along the
coast was rent, and the ground along the port, which was before quite level,
became afterwards inclined towards the sea, the depth of the water having, at
the same time, increased in several parts, through the displacement of
portions of the bottom. The quay also subsided about fourteen inches
below the level of the sea, and the houses near it were much rent. But
it was in the city itself that the most terrible desolation was wrought—a
complication of disasters having followed the shock, more especially a fierce
conflagration, whose intensity was augmented by the large stores of oil kept
in the place.
IMMENSE DESTRUCTION
According to official reports made soon after the events,
the destruction caused by the earthquakes of the 5th of February and 28th
of March throughout the two Calabrias was immense. About 320 towns and
villages were entirely reduced to ruins, and about fifty others seriously
damaged. The loss of life was appalling—40,000 having perished by the
earthquakes, and 20,000 more having subsequently died from privation and
exposure, or from epidemic diseases bred by the stagnant pools and the
decaying carcases of men and animals. The greater number were buried
amid the ruins of the houses, while others perished in the fires that were
kindled in most of the towns, particularly in Oppido, where the flames
were fed by great magazines of oil. Not a few, especially among
the peasantry dwelling in the country, were suddenly engulfed
in fissures. Many who were only half buried in the ruins, and
who might have been saved had there been help at hand, were left to die a
lingering death from cold and hunger. Four Augustine monks
at Terranuova perished thus miserably. Having taken refuge in
a vaulted sacristy, they were entombed in it alive by the masses
of rubbish, and lingered for four days, during which their cries for help
could be heard, till death put an end to their sufferings.
Of still more thrilling interest was the case of the
Marchioness Spastara. Having fainted at the moment of the first great
shock, she was lifted by her husband, who, bearing her in his
arms, hurried with her to the harbor. Here, on recovering her
senses, she observed that her infant boy had been left behind.
Taking advantage of a moment when her husband was too much occupied
to notice her, she darted off and, running back to the house, which was
still standing, she snatched her babe from its cradle. Rushing with him
in her arms towards the staircase, she found the stair had fallen—cutting
off all further progress in that direction. She fled from room to room,
pursued by the falling materials, and at length reached a balcony as her last
refuge. Holding up her infant, she implored the few passers-by for
help; but they all, intent on securing their own safety, turned a deaf ear to
her cries. Meanwhile the mansion had caught fire, and before long
the balcony, with the devoted lady still grasping her darling, was hurled
into the devouring flames.
The Charleston and Other Earthquakes of the United States.
The twin continents of America have rivalled the record of the
Old World in their experience of earthquakes since their discovery
in 1492. The first of these made note of was in Venezuela in
1530, but they have been numerous and often disastrous since. Among
them was the great shock at Lima in 1746, by which 18,000 were killed, and
those at Guatemala in 1773, with 33,000, and at Riobamba in 1797, with 41,000
victims. It will, however, doubtless prove of more interest to our
readers if we pass over these ruinous disasters and confine ourselves to the
less destructive earthquakes which have taken place within our own
country.
The United States, large a section of North America as it occupies, is
fortunate in being in a great measure destitute of volcanic phenomena, while
destructive earthquakes have been very rare in its history. This, it is
true, does not apply to the United States as it is, but as it was. It
has annexed the volcano and the earthquake with its new accessions of
territory. Alaska has its volcanoes, the Philippines are subject to
both forms of convulsion, and in Hawaii we possess the most spectacular
volcano of the earth, while the earthquake is its common attendant. But
in the older United States the volcano contents itself with an occasional
puff of smoke, and eruptive phenomena are confined to the minor form
of the geyser.
We are by no means so free from the earthquake. Slight
movements of the earth's surface are much more common than many of
us imagine, and in the history of our land there have been a number
of earth shocks of considerable violence. Prior to that of
San Francisco, the most destructive to life and property was that
of Charleston in 1886, though the 1812 convulsion in the
Mississippi Valley might have proved a much greater calamity but for the
fact that civilized man had not then largely invaded its centre
of action.
As regards the number of earth movements in this country, we are told
that in New England alone 231 were recorded in two hundred and fifty years,
while doubtless many slighter ones were left unrecorded. Taking the
whole United States, there were 364 recorded in the twelve years from 1872 to
1883, and in 1885 fifty- nine were recorded, more than two-thirds of them
being on the Pacific slope. Most of these, however, were very slight,
some of them barely perceptible.
Confining ourselves to those of the past important in their effects, we
shall first speak of the shocks which took place in New England in 1755, in
the year and month of the great earthquake at Lisbon. On the 18th of
November of that year, while the shocks at Lisbon still continued, New
England was violently shaken, loud underground explosive noises accompanying
the shocks. In the harbors along the Atlantic coast there was much
agitation of the waters and many dead fish were thrown up on the
shores. The shock, indeed, was felt far from the coast, by the crew of
a ship more than two hundred miles out at sea from Cape Ann,
Massachusetts.
This event, however, was of minor importance, being much inferior to
that of 1812, in which year California and the Mississippi Valley alike were
affected by violent movements of the earth's crust. The California
convulsions took place in the spring and summer of that year, extending from
the beginning of May until September. Throughout May the southern
portion of that region was violently agitated, the shocks being so frequent
and severe that people abandoned their houses and slept on the open
ground. The most destructive shocks came in September, when two Mission
houses were destroyed and many of their inmates killed. At Santa
Barbara a tidal wave invaded the coast and flowed some distance into
the interior.
It may be said here that California has proved more subject to severe
shocks than any other section of our country. In 1865 sharp tremors
shook the whole region about the Bay of San Francisco, many buildings being
thrown down. Hardly any of brick or stone escaped injury, though few
lives were lost. In 1872 a disturbance was felt farther west, the whole
range of the Sierra Nevada mountains being violently shaken and the earth
tremblings extending into the State of Nevada. The centre of activity
was along the crest of the range, and immense quantities of rock were thrown
down from the mountain pinnacles. A tremendous fissure opened along the
eastern base of the mountain range for forty miles, the land to the west
of the opening rising and that to the east sinking several feet.
One small settlement, that of Lone Pine, in Owen's Valley, on the
east base of the mountains, was completely demolished, from twenty
to thirty lives being lost. Luckily, the region affected had very
few inhabitants, or the calamity might have been great.
The earthquakes of 1812 in the Mississippi Valley began in December,
1811, and continued at intervals until 1813. As a rule they were more
distinguished by frequency than violence, though on several occasions they
were severe and had marked effects. They extended through the valleys
of the Mississippi, Arkansas and Ohio, and their long continuance was
remarkable in view of the territory affected being far from any volcanic
region.
The surface of the valley of the Mississippi was a good deal altered by
these convulsions—several new lakes being formed, while others were
drained. Several new islands were also raised in the river, and during
one of the shocks the ground a little below New Madrid was for a short time
lifted so high as to stop the current of the Mississippi, and cause it to
flow backward. The ground on which this town is built, and the bank of
the river for fifteen miles above it, subsided permanently about eight feet,
and the cemetery of the town fell into the river. In the
neighboring forest the trees were thrown into inclined positions in
every direction, and many of their trunks and branches were broken.
It is affirmed that in some places the ground swelled into great waves,
which burst at their summits and poured forth jets of water, along with sand
and pieces of coal, which were tossed as high as the tops of trees. On
the subsidence of these waves, there were left several hundreds of hollow
depressions from ten to thirty yards in diameter, and about twenty feet in
depth, which remained visible for many years afterward. Some of the
shocks were vertical, and others horizontal, the latter being the
most mischievous. These earthquakes resulted in the general
subsidence of a large tract of country, between seventy and eighty miles
in length from north to south, and about thirty miles in breadth from east
to west. Lakes now mark many of the localities affected by the
earthquake movements. It is only to the fact that this country was then
very thinly settled that a great loss of life was avoided.
New Madrid, Missouri, was a central point of this earthquake, the shocks
there being repeated with great frequency for several months. The
disturbance of the earth, however, was not confined to the United States, but
affected nearly half of the western hemisphere, ending in the upheaval of
Sabrina in the Azores, already described. The destruction of Caracas,
Venezuela, with many thousands of its inhabitants, and the eruption of La
Soufriere volcano of St. Vincent Island were incidents of this
convulsion. Dr. J. W. Foster tells us that on the night of the disaster
at Caracas the earthquake grew intense at New Madrid, fissures
being opened six hundred feet long by twenty broad, from which water
and sand were flung to the height of forty feet.
The most destructive of earthquakes in our former history was that which
visited Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886, the injury caused by it being
largely due to the fact that it passed through a populous city. As it
occurred after many of the people had retired, the confusion and terror due
to it were greatly augmented, people fleeing in panic fear from the tumbling
and cracking houses to seek refuge in the widest streets and open
spaces.
South Carolina had been affected by the wide-spread earthquakes
of 1812. These in some cases altered the level of the land, as
is related in Lyell's "Principles of Geology." But the effect
then was much less than in 1886. Several slight tremors occurred in
the early summer of that year, but did not excite much attention.
More distinct shocks were felt on August 27th and 28th, but the climax was
deferred till the evening of August 31st. The atmosphere that afternoon
had been unusually sultry and quiet, the breeze from the ocean, which
generally accompanies the rising tide, was almost entirely absent, and the
setting sun caused a little glow in the sky.
"As the hour of 9.50 was reached," we are told, "there was
suddenly heard a rushing, roaring sound, compared by some to a train of
cars at no great distance, by others to a clatter produced by two or more
omnibuses moving at a rapid rate over a paved street, by others again, to an
escape of steam from a boiler. It was followed immediately by a
thumping and beating of the earth beneath the houses, which rocked and swayed
to and fro. Furniture was violently moved and dashed to the floor;
pictures were swung from the walls, and in some cases turned with their backs
to the front, and every movable thing was thrown into extraordinary
convulsions. The greatest intensity of the shock is considered to have
been during the first half, and it was probably then, during the period of
its greatest sway, that so many chimneys were broken off at the junction of
the roof. The duration of this severe shock is thought to have been
from thirty-five to forty seconds. The impression produced on many was
that it could be subdivided into three distinct movements, while others were
of the opinion that it was one continuous movement, or succession of waves,
with the greatest intensity, as already stated, during the first half of
its duration."
Twenty-seven persons were killed outright, and more than that number
died soon after of their hurts or from exposure; many others were less
seriously injured. Among the buildings, the havoc, though much less
disastrous than has been recorded in some other earthquakes in either
hemisphere, was very great. "There was not a building in the city which
had escaped serious injury. The extent of the damage varied greatly,
ranging from total demolition down to the loss of chimney tops and the
dislodgment of more or less plastering. The number of buildings which
were completely demolished and levelled to the ground was not great; but
there were several hundreds which lost a large portion of their walls.
There were very many also which remained standing, but so badly
shattered that public safety required that they should be pulled
down altogether. There was not, so far as at present is known, a
brick or stone building which was not more or less cracked, and in most of
them the cracks were a permanent disfigurement and a source of danger and
inconvenience." In some places the railway track was curiously
distorted. "It was often displaced laterally, and sometimes alternately
depressed and elevated. Occasionally several lateral flexures of double
curvature and of great amount were exhibited. Many hundred yards of
track had been shoved bodily to the south eastward."
The ground was fissured at some places in the city to a depth of many
feet, and numerous "craterlets" were formed, from which sand was ejected in
considerable quantities. These are not uncommon phenomena, and were
due, no doubt, to the squirting of water out of saturated sandy layers not
far below the surface; these being squeezed between two less pervious beds in
the passage of the earthquake wave. The ejected material in the
Charleston earthquake was ordinary sand, such as might exist in many
districts which had been quite undisturbed by any concussions of the
earth.
Captain Dutton made a careful study of the observations collected by
himself and others concerning this earthquake, and came to the conclusion
that the Charleston wave traveled with unusual speed, for its mean velocity
was about 17,000 feet a second. The focus of the disturbance was also
ascertained. Apparently it was a double one, the two centres being
about thirteen miles apart, and the line joining them running nearly the same
distance to the west of Charleston. The approximate depth of the
principal focus is given as twelve miles, with a possible error of less than
two miles; that of the minor one as roughly eight miles.
The Charleston earthquake was felt as a tremor of more or less force
through a wide area, embracing 900,000 square miles, and affecting nearly the
whole country east of the Mississippi. It is said that the yield of the
Pennsylvania natural gas wells decreased, and that a geyser in the
Yellowstone valley burst into action after four years of rest. The
movement of the earth-wave was in general north and south, deflected to east
and west, and the snake-like fashion in which rails on the railroad were
bent indicated both a vertical and a lateral force.
This earthquake has been attributed to various causes, but geological
experts think that it was due to a slip in the crust along the Appalachian
Mountain chain. There is a line of weakness along the eastern slope of
this chain, characterized by fissures and faults, and it was thought that a
strain had been gradually brought to bear upon this through the removal of
earth from the land by rains and rivers and its deposition in thick strata on
the sea-bottom. It is supposed that this variation in weight in
time caused a yielding of the strata and a slip seaward of the
great coastal plain. Professor Mendenhall, however, thinks it was due
to a readjustment of the earth's crust to its gradually
sinking nucleus.
The Volcano and the Earthquake, Earth's Demons of Destruction.
To most of us, dwellers upon the face of the earth, this terrestrial
sphere is quite a comfortable place of residence. The forces of Nature
everywhere and at all times surround us, forces capable, if loosened from
their bonds, of bringing death and destruction to man and the work of his
hands. But usually they are mild and beneficent in their action, not
agents of destruction and lords of elemental misrule. The air, without
whose presence we could not survive a minute, is usually a pleasant
companion, now resting about us in soft calm, now passing by in mild
breezes. The alternation of summer and winter is to us generally an
agreeable relief from the monotony of a uniform climate. The variation
from sunlight to cloud, from dry weather to rainfall, is equally viewed as
a pleasant escape from the weariness of too great fixity of natural
conditions. The change from day to night, from hours of activity to
hours of slumber, are other agreeable variations in the events of our daily
life. In short, a great pendulum seems to be swinging above us, held in
Nature's kindly hand, and adapting its movements to our best good and highest
enjoyment.
But has Nature,—if we are justified in personifying the laws and forces
of the universe,—has mother Nature really our pleasure and benefit in mind,
or does she merely suffer us to enjoy life like so many summer insects, until
she is in the mood to sweep us like leaves from her path? It must seem
the latter to many of the inhabitants of the earth, especially to the
dwellers in certain ill-conditioned regions. For all the beneficent
powers above named may at a moment's notice change to destructive ones.
THE WIND IS A DEMON IN CHAINS
The wind, for instance, is a demon in chains. At times it
breaks its fetters and rushes on in mad fury, rending and destroying,
and sweeping such trifles as cities and those who dwell therein to common
ruin. Sunshine and rain are subject to like wild caprices. The sun may
pour down burning rays for weeks and months together, scorching the fertile
fields, drying up the life-giving streams, bringing famine and misery to
lands of plenty and comfort, almost making the blood to boil in our
veins. Its antithesis, the rainstorm, is at times a still more terrible
visitant. From the dense clouds pour frightful floods, rushing down the
lofty hills, sweeping over fertile plains, overflowing broad river valleys,
and, wherever they go, leaving terror and death in their path. We
may say the same of the alternation of the seasons. Summer,
while looked forward to with joyous anticipation, may bring us
only suffering by its too ardent grasp; and winter, often welcomed
with like pleasurable anticipations, may prove a period of terror
from cold and destitution.
Such is the make-up of the world in which we live, such the vagaries of
the forces which surround us. But those enumerated are not the
whole. Can we say, with a stamp of the foot upon the solid earth, "Here
at least I have something I can trust; let the winds blow and the rains
descend, let the summer scorch and the winter chill, the good earth still
stands firm beneath me, and of it at least I am sure?"
Who says so speaks hastily and heedlessly, for the earth can show itself
as unstable as the air, and our solid footing become as insecure as the deck
of a ship laboring in a storm at sea. The powers of the atmosphere,
great as they are and mighty for destruction as they may become, are at times
surpassed by those which abide within the earth, deep laid in the
so-called everlasting rocks, slumbering often through generations, but at
any time likely to awaken in wrath, to lift the earth into quaking billows
like those of the sea, or pour forth torrents of liquid fire that flow in
glowing and burning rivers over leagues of ruined land. Such is the
earth with which we have to deal, such the ruthless powers of nature that
spread around us and lurk beneath us, such the terrific forces which only
bide their time to break forth and sweep too-confident man from the earth's
smiling face.
THE SUBTERRANEAN POWERS
The subterranean powers here spoken of, those we had
denominated earth's demons of destruction, are the volcano and the
earthquake, the great moulding forces of the earth, tearing down to
rebuild, rending to reconstitute, and in this elemental work often
bringing ruin to man's boasted fanes and palaces.
No one who has ever seen a volcano or "burning mountain" casting forth
steam, huge red-hot stones, smoke, cinders and lava, can possibly forget the
grandeur of the spectacle. At night it is doubly terrible, when the
darkness shows the red-hot lava rolling in glowing streams down the
mountain's side. At times, indeed, the volcano is quiet, and only a
little smoke curls from its top. Even this may cease, and the once
burning summit may be covered over with trees and grass, like any other
hill. But deep down in the earth the gases and pent-up steam, are ever
preparing to force their way upward through the mountain, and to carry with
them dissolved rocks, and the stones which block their passage. Sometimes,
while all is calm and beautiful on the mountains, suddenly deep-sounding
noises are heard, the ground shakes, and a vast torrent tears its way through
the bowels of the volcano, and is flung hundreds of feet high in the air,
and, falling again to the earth, destroys every living thing for miles
around.
It is the same with the earthquake as with the volcano.
The surface of the earth is never quite still. Tremors are
constantly passing onward which can be distinguished by delicate
instruments, but only rarely are these of sufficient force to become
noticeable, except by instrumental means. At intervals, however, the
power beneath the surface raises the ground in long, billow-like
motions, before which, when of violent character, no edifice or
human habitation can for a moment stand. The earth is frequently
rent asunder, great fissures and cavities being formed. The course
of rivers is changed and the waters are swallowed up by fissures rent in
the surface, while ruin impends in a thousand forms. The cities become
death pits and the cultivated fields are buried beneath floods of liquid
mud. Fortunately these convulsions, alike of the earthquake and
volcano, are comparative rarities and are confined to limited regions of the
earth's surface. What do we know of those deep-lying powers, those vast
buried forces dwelling in uneasy isolation beneath our feet? With all
our science we are but a step beyond the ancients, to whom these were the
Titans, great rebel giants whom Jupiter overthrew and bound under the
burning mountains, and whose throes of agony shook the earth in
quaking convulsions. To us the volcanic crater is the mouth from
which comes the fiery breath of demon powers which dwell far down in
the earth's crust. The Titans themselves were dwarfs beside
these mighty agents of destruction whose domain extends for thousands
of miles beneath the earth's surface and which in their convulsions shake
whole continents at once. Such was the case in 1812, when the eruption
of Mont Soufriere on St. Vincent, as told in a later chapter, formed merely
the closing event in a series of earthquakes which had made themselves felt
under thousands of miles of land.
ANCIENT AWE OF VOLCANOES
In olden times volcanoes were regarded with superstitious awe,
and it would have been considered highly impious to make any investigation
of their actions. We are told by Virgil that Mt. Etna marks the spot
where the gods in their anger buried Enceladus, one of the rebellious
giants. To our myth-making ancestors one of the volcanoes of the
Mediterranean, set on a small island of the Lipari group, was the workshop of
Vulcan, the god of fire, within whose depths he forged the thunderbolts of
the gods. From below came sounds as of a mighty hammer on a vast
anvil. Through the mountain vent came the black smoke and lurid glow
from the fires of Vulcan's forge. This old myth is in many respects
more consonant with the facts of nature than myths usually are. In
agreement with the theory of its internal forces, the mountain in question
was given the name of Volcano. today it is scarcely known at all,
but its name clings to all the fire-breathing mountains of the earth.
As before said, at the present day we are little in advance of
the ancients in actual knowledge of what is going on so far beneath
our feet. We speak of forces where they spoke of fettered giants,
but can only form theories where they formed myths. Is the
earth's centre made up of liquid fire? Does its rock crust resemble
the thick ice crust on the Arctic Seas, or is the earth, as
later scientists believe, solid to the core? Is it heated so
fiercely, miles below our feet, that at every release of pressure the
solid rock bursts into molten lava? Is the steam from the contact
of underground rivers and deep-lying fires the origin of the
terrible rending powers of the volcano's depths? Truly we can answer
none of these questions with assurance, and can only guess and conjecture
from the few facts open to us what lies concealed far beneath.
RARITY OF ANCIENT ACCOUNTS
In the history of earthquakes nothing is more remarkable than
the extreme fewness of those recorded before the beginning of
the Christian era, in comparison with those that have been
registered since that time. It is to be borne in mind, however, that
before the birth of Christ only a small portion of the globe was
inhabited by those likely to make a record of natural events. The
vast apparent increase in the number of earthquakes in recent times
is owing to a greater knowledge of the earth's surface and to the spread
of civilization over lands once inhabited by savages. The same is to be
said of volcanic eruptions, which also have apparently increased greatly
since the beginning of the Christian era. There may possibly have been
a natural increase in these phenomena, but this is hardly probable, the
change being more likely due to the increase in the number of
observers.
The structure of a volcano is very different from that of
other mountains, really consisting of layers of lava and volcanic
ashes, alternating with each other and all sloping away from the
center. These elevations, in fact, are formed in a different manner
from ordinary mountains. The latter have been uplifted by the
influence of pressure in the interior of the earth, but the volcano is
an immediate result of the explosive force of which we have spoken, the
mountain being gradually built up by the lava and other materials which it
has flung up from below. In this way mountains of immense height and
remarkable regularity have been formed. Mount Orizabo, near the City of
Mexico, for instance, is a remarkably regular cone, undoubtedly formed in
this way, and the same may be said of Mount Mayon, on the Island of
Luzon.
In many cases the irregularity of the volcano is due to
subsequent action of its forces, which may blow the mountain itself to
pieces. In the case of Krakatoa, in the East Indies, for instance,
the whole mountain was rent into fragments, which were flung as dust miles
high into the air. The main point we wish to indicate is that volcanoes
are never formed by ordinary elevating forces and that they differ in this
way from all other mountains. On the contrary, they have been piled up
like rubbish heaps, resembling the small mountains of coal dust near the
mouths of anthracite mines.
It is to the burning heat of the earth's crust and the influence
of pressure, and more largely to the influx of water to the molten rocks
which lie miles below the surface, that these convulsions of nature are
due. Water, on reaching these overheated strata, explodes into volumes
of steam, and if there is no free vent to the surface, it is apt to rend the
very mountain asunder in its efforts to escape. Such is supposed to
have been the case in the eruption of Krakatoa, and was probably the case
also in the recent case of Mt. Pelee.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF ERUPTIONS
If we should seek to give a general description of
volcanic eruptions, it would be in some such words as follows: An
eruption is usually preceded by earthquakes which affect the
whole surrounding country, and associated with which are
underground explosions that seem like the sound of distant artillery.
The mountain quivers with internal convulsions, due to the efforts of its
confined forces to find an opening. The drying up of wells
and disappearance of springs are apt to take place, the water
sinking downward through cracks newly made in the rocks. Finally
the fierce unchained energy rends an opening through the crater and
an eruption begins. It comes usually with a terrible burst
that shakes the mountain to its foundation; explosions following
rapidly and with increasing violence, while steam issues and mounts
upward in a lofty column. The steam and escaping gases in their
fierce outbreaks hurl up into the air great quantities of solid rock
torn from the sides of the opening. The huge blocks, meeting each
other in their rise and fall, are gradually broken and ground into
minute fragments, forming dust or so-called ashes, often of
extreme fineness, and in such quantities as frequently to blot out
the light of the sun. There is another way in which a great deal
of volcanic dust is made; the lava is full of steam, which in
its expansion tears the molten rock into atoms, often converting it into
the finest dust.
The eruption of Mt. Skaptar, in Iceland, in 1783, sent up such volumes
of dust that the atmosphere was loaded with it for months, and it was carried
to the northern part of Scotland, 600 miles away, in such quantities as to
destroy the crops. During the eruption of Tomboro, in the East Indies,
in 1815, so great was the quantity of dust thrown up that it caused darkness
at midday in Java 300 miles away and covered the ground to a depth of
several inches. Floating pumice formed a layer on the ocean surface
two and a half feet in thickness, through which vessels had difficulty in
forcing their way.
The steam which rises in large volumes into the air may become suddenly
condensed with the chill of the upper atmosphere and fall as rain, torrents
of which often follow an eruption. The rain, falling through the clouds
of volcanic dust, brings it to the earth as liquid mud, which pours in thick
streams down the sides of the mountain. The torrents of flowing mud are
sometimes on such a great scale that large towns, as in the instance of the
great city of Herculaneum, may be completely buried beneath them. Over
this city the mud accumulated to the depth of over 70 feet. In
addition to these phenomena, molten lava often flows from the lip of
the crater, occasionally in vast quantities. In the Icelandic
eruption of 1783 the lava streams were so great in quantity as to fill
river gorges 600 ft. deep and 200 ft. wide, and to extend over an
open plain to a distance of 12 to 15 miles, forming lakes of lava 100 feet
deep. The volcanoes of Hawaii often send forth streams of lava which
cover an area of over 100 square miles to a great depth.
GREAT OUTFLOWS OF LAVA
In the course of ages lava outflows of this kind have built up
in Hawaii a volcanic mountain estimated to contain enough material
to cover the whole of the United States with a layer of rock 50
feet deep. These great outflows of lava are not confined to
mountains, but take place now and then from openings in the ground, or
from long cracks in the surface rocks. Occasionally great
eruptions have taken place beneath the ocean's surface, throwing up
material in sufficient quantity to form new islands.
The formation of mud is not confined to the method given, but
great quantities of this plastic material flow at times from
volcanic craters. In the year 1691 Imbaburu, one of the peaks of the
Andes, sent out floods of mud which contained dead fish in such
abundance that their decay caused a fever in the vicinity. The
volcanoes of Java have often buried large tracts of fertile country
under volcanic mud.
An observation of volcanoes shows us that they have three well marked
phases of action. The first of these is the state of permanent
eruption, as in case of the volcano of Stromboli in the Mediterranean.
This state is not a dangerous one, since the steam, escaping continually,
acts as a safety valve. The second stage is one of milder activity with
an occasional somewhat violent eruption; this is apt to be dangerous, though
not often very greatly so. The safety valve is partly out of
order. The third phase is one in which long periods of repose,
sometimes lasting for centuries, are followed by eruptions of intense
energy. These are often of extreme violence and cause widespread
destruction. In this case the safety valve has failed to work and the
boiler bursts.
OFTEN REST FOR LONG TERMS OF YEARS
Such are the general features of action in the vast powers
which dwell deep beneath the surface, harmless in most parts of the earth,
frightfully perilous in others. Yet even here they often rest for long
terms of years in seeming apathy, until men gather above their lurking places
in multitudes, heedless or ignorant of the sleeping demons that bide their
time below. Their time is sure to come, after years, perhaps after
centuries. Suddenly the solid earth begins to tremble and quake; roars
as of one of the buried giants of old strike all men with dread; then, with a
fierce convulsion, a mountain is rent in twain and vast torrents of
steam, burning rock, and blinding dust are hurled far upward into the
air, to fall again and bury cities, perhaps, with all their inhabitants in
indiscriminate ruin and death.
Theories of Volcanic and Earthquake Action.
Though the first formation of a volcano (Italian, vulcano,
from Vulcan, the Roman god of fire) has seldom been witnessed, it
would seem that it is marked by earthquake movements followed by
the opening of a rent or fissure; but with no such tilting up of the rocks
as was once supposed to take place. From this fissure large volumes of
steam issue, accompanied by hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrochloric
acid, and sulphur dioxide. The hydrogen, apparently derived from the
dissociation of water at a high temperature, flashes explosively into union
with atmospheric oxygen, and, having exerted its explosive force, the
steam condenses into cloud, heavy masses of which overhang the
volcano, pouring down copious rains. This naturally disturbs the
electrical condition of the atmosphere, so that thunder and lightning
are frequent accompaniments of an eruption. The hydrochloric
acid probably points to the agency of sea-water. Besides the gases
just mentioned, sulphuretted hydrogen, ammonia and common salt occur; but
mainly as secondary products, formed by the union of the vapors issuing from
the volcano, and commonly found also in the vapors rising from cooling lava
streams or dormant volcanic districts. It is important to notice that
the vapors issue from the volcano spasmodically, explosions succeeding each
other with great rapidity and noise.
All substances thrown out by the volcano, whether gaseous, liquid or
solid, are conveniently united under the term ejectamenta (Latin, things
thrown out), and all of them are in an intensely heated, if not an
incandescent state. Most of the gases are incombustible, but the
hydrogen and those containing sulphur burn with a true flame, perhaps
rendered more visible by the presence of solid particles. Much of the
so-called flame, however, in popular descriptions of eruptions is an error of
observation due to the red-hot solid particles and the reflection of the
glowing orifice on the over-hanging clouds.
ENORMOUS FORCE DISPLAYED
Solid bodies are thrown into the air with enormous force and
to proportionally great heights, those not projected vertically falling in
consequence at considerable distances from the volcano. A block weighing 200
tons is said to have been thrown nine miles by Cotopaxi; masses of rock
weighing as much as twenty tons to have been ejected by Mount Ararat in 1840;
and stones to have been hurled to a distance of thirty-six miles in other
cases. The solid matter thrown out by volcanoes consists of lapilli,
scoriae, dust and bombs.
Though on the first formation of the volcano, masses of non- volcanic
rock may be torn from the chimney or pipe of the mountain, only slightly
fused externally owing to the bad conducting power of most rocks, and hurled
to a distance; and though at the beginning of a subsequent eruption the solid
plug of rock which has cooled at the bottom of the crater, or, in fact, any
part of the volcano, may be similarly blown up, the bulk of the solid
particles of which the volcano itself is composed is derived from the lake of
lava or molten rock which seethes at the orifice. Solid pieces rent
from this fused mass and cast up by the explosive force of the steam with
which the lava is saturated are known as lapilli. Cooling rapidly so as
to be glassy in texture externally, these often have time to become perfectly
crystalline within.
Gases and steam escaping from other similar masses may leave
them hollow, when they are termed bombs, or may pit their surfaces
with irregular bubble-cavities, when they are called scoriae
or scoriaceous. Such masses whirling through the air in a
plastic state often become more or less oblately spheroidal in form;
but, as often, the explosive force of their contained vapors shatters them
into fragments, producing quantities of the finest volcanic dust or
sand. This fine dust darkens the clouds overhanging the mountain, mixes
with the condensed steam to fall as a black mud- rain, or lava di aqua
(Italian, water lava), or is carried up to enormous heights, and then slowly
diffused by upper currents of the atmosphere. In the eruption of
Vesuvius of A.D. 79, the air was dark as midnight for twelve or fifteen miles
round; the city of Pompeii was buried beneath a deposit of dry scoriae, or
ashes and dust, and Herculaneum beneath a layer of the mud-like lava di
aqua, which on drying sets into a compact rock. Rocks formed from
these fragmentary volcanic materials are known as tuff.
VOLCANIC CONES HAVE SIMILAR CURVATURES
It is entirely of these cindery fragments heaped up with
marvellous rapidity round the orifice that the volcano itself is first
formed. It may, as in the case of Jorullo in Mexico in 1759, form a
cone several hundred feet high in less than a day. Such a cone may
have a slope as steep as 30 or 40 degrees, its incline in all
cases depending simply on the angle of repose of its materials;
the inclination, that is, at which they stop rolling. The
great volcanoes of the Andes, which are formed mainly of ash, are
very steep. Owing to a general similarity in their materials,
volcanic cones in all parts of the world have very similar curvatures;
but older volcanic mountains, in which lava-streams have broken
through the cone, secondary cones have arisen, or portions have been
blown up, are more irregular in outline and more gradual in
inclination.
In size, volcanoes vary from mere mounds a few yards in diameter, such
as the salses or mud volcanoes near the Caspian, to Etna, 10,800 feet high,
with a base 30 miles in diameter; Cotopaxi, in the Andes, 18,887 feet high;
or Mauna Loa, in the Sandwich Isles, 13,700 feet high; with a base 70 miles
in diameter, and two craters, one of which, Kilauea, the largest active
crater on our earth, is seven miles in circuit. Larger extinct craters
occur in Japan; but all our terrestrial volcanic mountains are dwarfed
by those observed on the surface of the moon, which, owing to its smaller
size, has cooled more rapidly than our earth. It is, of course, the
explosive force from below which keeps the crater clear, as a cup-shaped
hollow, truncating the cone; and all stones falling into it would be only
thrown out again. It may at the close of an eruption cool down so
completely that a lake can form within it, such as Lake Averno, near Naples;
or it may long remain a seething sea of lava, such as Kilauea; or the lava
may find one or more outlets from it, either by welling over its rim, which
it will then generally break down, as in many of the small
extinct volcanoes ("puys") of Auvergne, or more usually by bursting
through the sides of the cone.
LAVA VARIES VERY MUCH IN LIQUIDITY
It is not generally until the volcano has exhausted its
first explosive force that lava begins to issue. Several streams
may issue in different directions. Their dimensions are
sometimes enormous. Lava varies very much in liquidity and in the rate
at which it flows. This much depends, however, upon the slope it
has to traverse. A lava stream at Vesuvius ran three miles in
four minutes, but took three hours to flow the next three miles, while
a stream from Mauna Loa ran eighteen miles in two hours. Glowing
at first as a white-hot liquid, the lava soon cools at the surface to red
and then to black; cinder-like scoriaceous masses form on its surface and in
front of the slowly-advancing mass; clouds of steam and other vapor rise from
it, and little cones are thrown up from its surface; but many years may
elapse before the mass is cooled through. Thus, while the surface is
glassy, the interior becomes crystalline.
As to what are the causes of the great convulsions of nature known as
the volcano and the earthquake we know very little. Various theories
have been advanced, but nothing by any means sure has been discovered, and
considerable difference of opinion exists. In truth we know so little
concerning the conditions existing in the earth's interior that any views
concerning the forces at work there must necessarily be largely
conjectural.
Sir Robert S. Ball says, in this connection: "Let us take, for instance,
that primary question in terrestrial physics, as to whether the interior of
the earth is liquid or solid. If we were to judge merely from the
temperatures reasonably believed to exist at a depth of some twenty miles,
and if we might overlook the question of pressure, we should certainly say
that the earth's interior must be in a fluid state. It seems at least
certain that the temperatures to be found at depths of two score miles,
and still more at greater depths, must be so high that the most refractory
solids, whether metals or minerals, would at once yield if we could subject
them to such temperatures in our laboratories. But none of our laboratory
experiments can tell us whether, under the pressure of thousands of tons on
the square inch, the application of any heat whatever would be adequate to
transform solids into liquids. It may, indeed, be reasonably doubted
whether the terms solid and liquid are applicable, in the sense in which
we understand them, to the materials forming the interior of
the earth.
"A principle, already well known in the arts, is that many, if not all,
solids may be made to flow like liquids if only adequate pressure be
applied. The making of lead tubes is a well-known practical
illustration of this principle, for these tubes are formed simply by forcing
solid lead by the hydraulic press through a mould which imparts the desired
shape.
"If then a solid can be made to behave like a liquid, even with such
pressures as are within our control, how are we to suppose that the solids
would behave with such pressures as those to which they are subjected in the
interior of the earth? The fact is that the terms solid and liquid, at
least as we understand them, appear to have no physical meaning with regard
to bodies subjected to these stupendous pressures, and this must be carefully
borne in mind when we are discussing the nature of the interior of
the earth."
THE VOLCANO A SAFETY VALVE
Whatever be the state of affairs in the depths of the earth's crust,
we may look upon the volcano as a sort of safety-valve, opening a passage for
the pent-up forces to the surface, and thus relieving the earth from the
terrible effects of the earthquake, through which these imprisoned powers so
often make themselves felt. Without the volcanic vent there might be no
safety for man on the earth's unquiet face.
Professor J. C. Russell, of Michigan University, presents the following
views concerning the status and action of volcanoes:—
"When reduced to its simplest terms, a volcano may be defined as a tube,
or conduit, in the earth's crust, through which the molten rock is forced to
the surface. The conduit penetrates the cool and rigid rocks forming
the superficial portion of the earth, and reaches its highly heated
interior.
"The length of volcanic conduits can only be conjectured, but, judging
from the approximately known rate of increase of heat with depth (on an
average one degree Fahrenheit for each sixty feet), and the temperature at
which volcanic rocks melt (from 2,300 to 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, when not
under pressure), they must seemingly have a depth of at least twenty
miles. There are other factors to be considered, but in general terms
it is safe to assume that the conduits of volcanoes are irregular openings,
many miles in depth, which furnish passageways for molten rock (lava) from
the highly-heated sub-crust portion of the earth to its surface. . . .
ERUPTIONS OF QUIET TYPE
"During eruptions of the quiet type, the lava comes to the
surface in a highly liquid condition—that is, it is thoroughly fused,
and flows with almost the freedom of water. It spreads widely, even
on a nearly level plain, and may form a comparatively thin sheet several
hundred square miles in area, as has been observed in Iceland and
Hawaii. On the Snake River plains, in Southern Idaho, there are sheets
of once molten rock which were poured out in the manner just stated, some
four hundred square miles in area and not over seventy-five feet in average
thickness. When an eruption of highly liquid lava occurs in a
mountainous region, the molten rock may cascade down deep slopes and flow
through narrow valleys for fifty miles or more before becoming chilled
sufficiently to arrest its progress. Instances are abundant where quiet
eruptions have occurred in the midst of a plain, and built up 'lava cones,'
or low mounds, with immensely expanded bases. Illustrations are
furnished in Southern Idaho, in which the cones formed are only three
hundred or four hundred feet high, but have a breadth at the base of
eight or ten miles. In the class of eruption illustrated by
these examples, there is an absence of fragmental material, such
as explosive volcanoes hurl into the air, and a person may stand within a
few yards of a rushing stream of molten rock, or examine closely the opening
from which it is being poured out, without danger or serious
inconvenience.
"The quiet volcanic eruptions are attended by the escape of steam or
gases from the molten rock, but the lava being in a highly liquid state, the
steam and gases dissolved in it escape quietly and without explosions.
If, however, the molten rock is less completely fluid, or in a viscous
condition, the vapors and gases contained in it find difficulty in escaping,
and may be retained until, becoming concentrated in large volume, they break
their way to the surface, producing violent explosions. Volcanoes in
which the lava extruded is viscous, and the escape of steam and gases
is retarded until the pent-up energy bursts all bounds, are of
the explosive, type. One characteristic example is Vesuvius.
"When steam escapes from the summit of a volcanic conduit—which, in
plain terms, is a tall vessel filled with intensely hot and more or less
viscous liquid—masses of the liquid rock are blown into the air, and on
falling build up a rim or crater about the place of discharge. Commonly
the lava in the summit portion of a conduit becomes chilled and perhaps
hardened, and when a steam explosion occurs this crust is shattered and the
fragments hurled into the air and contributed to the building of the walls of
the inclosing crater.
"The solid rock blown out by volcanoes consists usually of
highly vesicular material which hardened on the surface of the column
of lava within a conduit and was shattered by explosions beneath it. These
fragments vary in size from dust particles up to masses several feet in
diameter, and during violent eruptions are hurled miles high. The
larger fragments commonly fall near their place of origin, and usually
furnish the principal part of the material of which craters are built, but
the gravel-like kernels, lapilli, may be carried laterally several miles if a
wind is blowing, while the dust is frequently showered down on thousands of
square miles of land and sea. The solid and usually angular fragments
manufactured in this manner vary in temperature, and may still be red hot
on falling.
"Volcanoes of the explosive type not uncommonly discharge streams of
lava, which may flow many miles. In certain instances these outwellings
of liquid rock occur after severe earthquakes and violent explosions, and may
have all the characteristics of quiet eruptions. There is thus no
fundamental difference between the two types into which it is convenient to
divide volcanoes.
MOUNTAINS BLOW THEIR HEADS OFF
"In extreme examples of explosive volcanoes, the summit portion of a
crater, perhaps several miles in circumference and several thousand feet
high, is blown away. Such an occurrence is recorded in the case of the
volcano Coseguina, Nicaragua, in 1835. Or, an entire mountain may
disappear, being reduced to lapilli and dust and blown into the air, as in
the case of Krakatoa, in the Straits of Sunda, in 1883.
"The essential feature of a volcano, as stated above, is a tube
or conduit, leading from the highly heated sub-crust portion of the earth
to the crater and through which molten rock is forced upward to the
surface. The most marked variations in the process depend on the
quantity of molten rock extruded, and on the freedom of escape of the steam
and gases contained in the lava.
"The cause of the rise of the molten rock in a volcano is still a matter
for discussion. Certain geologists contend that steam is the sole
motive power; while others consider that the lava is forced to the surface
owing to pressure on the reservoir from which it comes. The view
perhaps most favorably entertained at present, in reference to the general
nature of volcanic eruptions, is that the rigid outer portion of the earth
becomes fractured, owing principally to movements resulting from the
shrinking of the cooling inner mass, and that the intensely hot material
reached by the fissures, previously solid owing to pressure, becomes
liquid when pressure is relieved, and is forced to the surface. As
the molten material rises it invades the water-charged rocks near
the surface and acquires steam, or the gases resulting from
the decomposition of water, and a new force is added which produces
the most conspicuous and at times the most terrible phenomena accompanying
eruptions."
The active agency of water is strongly maintained by many geologists,
and certainly gains support from the vast clouds of steam given off by
volcanoes in eruption and the steady and quiet emission of steam from many in
a state of rest. The quantities of water in the liquid state, to which
is due the frequent enormous outflows of mud, leads to the same
conclusion. Many scientists, indeed, while admitting the agency of
water, look upon this as the aqueous material originally pent up within the
rocks. For instance Professor Shaler, dean of the Lawrence Scientific
School, says:
"Volcanic outbreaks are merely the explosion of steam under
high pressure, steam which is bound in rocks buried underneath the surface
of the earth and there subjected to such tremendous heat that when the
conditions are right its pent-up energy breaks forth and it shatters its
stone prison walls into dust. The process by which the water becomes
buried in this manner is a long one. Some contend that it leaks down
from the surface of the earth through fissures in the outer crust, but this
theory is not generally accepted. The common belief is that water
enters the rocks during the crystalization period, and that these rocks
through the natural action of rivers and streams become deposited in the
bottom of the ocean. Here they lie for many ages, becoming buried
deeper and deeper under masses of like sediment, which are constantly
being washed down upon them from above. This process is called
the blanketing process.
"Each additional layer of sediment, while not raising the level of the
sea bottom, buries the first layers just so much the deeper and adds to their
temperature just as does the laying of extra blankets on a bed. When
the first layer has reached a depth of a few thousand feet the rocks which
contain the water of crystalization are subjected to a terrific heat.
This heat generates steam, which is held in a state of frightful tension in
its rocky prison. Wrinklings in the outer crust of the earth's surface occur,
caused by the constant shrinking of the earth itself and by
the contraction of the outer surface as it settles on the plastic centers
underneath. Fissures are caused by these foldings, and as these
fissures reach down into the earth the pressure is removed from the rocks and
the compressed steam in them, being released, explodes with tremendous
force."
This view is, very probably, applicable to many cases, and
the exceedingly fine dust which so often rises from volcanoes
has, doubtless, for one of its causes the sudden and explosive conversion
of water into steam in the interior of ejected lava, thus rending it into
innumerable fragments. But that this is the sole mode of action of
water in volcanic eruptions is very questionable. It certainly does not
agree with the immense volumes at times thrown out, while explosions of such
extreme intensity as that of Krakatoa very strongly lead to the conclusion
that a great mass of water has made its way through newly opened fissures to
the level of molten rock, and exploded into steam with a suddenness which
gave it the rending force of dynamite or the other powerful chemical
explosives.
As the earthquake is so intimately associated with the volcano
the causes of the latter are in great measure the causes of the
former, and the forces at work frequently produce a more or less
violent quaking of the earth's surface before they succeed in opening
a channel of escape through the mountain's heart. One agency
of great potency, and one whose work never ceases, has doubtless much to
do with earthquake action. In the description of this we cannot do
better than to quote from "The Earth's Beginning" of Sir Robert S.
Ball.
CAUSE OF EARTHQUAKES
"As to the immediate cause of earthquakes there is no
doubt considerable difference of opinion. But I think it will not
be doubted that an earthquake is one of the consequences, though perhaps a
remote one, of the gradual loss of internal heat from the earth. As
this terrestrial heat is gradually declining, it follows from the law that we
have already so often had occasion to use that the bulk of the earth must be
shrinking. No doubt the diminution in the earth's diameter due to the
loss of heat must be exceedingly small, even in a long period of time.
The cause, however, is continually in operation, and, accordingly, the crust
of the earth has from time to time to be accommodated to the fact that the
whole globe is lessening. The circumference of our earth at the
equator must be gradually declining; a certain length in that
circumference is lost each year. We may admit that loss to be a
quantity far too small to be measured by any observations as yet obtainable,
but, nevertheless, it is productive of phenomena so important that
it cannot be overlooked.
"It follows from these considerations that the rocks which form
the earth's crust over the surface of the continents and the islands, or
beneath the bed of the ocean, must have a lessening acreage year by
year. These rocks must therefore submit to compression,
either continuously or from time to time, and the necessary yielding
of the rocks will in general take place in those regions where
the materials of the earth's crust happen to have comparatively
small powers of resistance. The acts of compression will often,
and perhaps generally, not proceed with uniformity, but rather with small
successive shifts, and even though the displacements of the rocks in these
shifts be actually very small, yet the pressures to which the rocks are
subjected are so vast that a very small shift may correspond to a very great
terrestrial disturbance.
"Suppose, for instance, that there is a slight shift in the rocks on
each side of a crack, or fault, at a depth of ten miles. It must be
remembered that the pressure ten miles down would be about thirty-five tons
to the square inch. Even a slight displacement of one extensive surface
over another, the sides being pressed together with a force of thirty-five
tons on the square inch, would be an operation necessarily accompanied by
violence greatly exceeding that which we might expect from so small a
displacement if the forces concerned had been of more ordinary
magnitude. On account of this great multiplication of the intensity of
the phenomenon, merely a small rearrangement of the rocks in the crust of
the earth, in pursuance of the necessary work of accommodating its volume to
the perpetual shrinkage, might produce an excessively violent shock,
extending far and wide. The effect of such a shock would be propagated
in the form of waves through the globe, just as a violent blow given at one
end of a bar of iron by a hammer is propagated through the bar in the form of
waves. When the effect of this internal adjustment reaches the earth's
surface it will sometimes be great enough to be perceptible in the shaking it
gives that surface. The shaking may be so violent that buildings may
not be able to withstand it. Such is the phenomenon of an
earthquake.
"When the earth is shaken by one of those occasional adjustments of the
crust which I have described, the wave that spreads like a pulsation from the
centre of agitation extends all over our globe and is transmitted right
through it. At the surface lying immediately over the centre of
disturbance there will be a violent shock. In the surrounding country,
and often over great distances, the earthquake may also be powerful enough to
produce destructive effects. The convulsion may also be manifested over
a far larger area of country in a way which makes the shock to be felt,
though the damage wrought may not be appreciable. But beyond a
limited distance from the centre of the agitation the earthquake
will produce no destructive effects upon buildings, and will not
even cause vibrations that would be appreciable to ordinary
observation.
THE RADIUS OF DISTURBANCE.
"In each locality in which earthquakes are chronic it would seem
as if there must be a particularly weak spot in the earth some miles below
the surface. A shrinkage of the earth, in the course of the incessant
adjustment between the interior and the exterior, will take place by
occasional little jumps at this particular centre. The fact that there is
this weak spot at which small adjustments are possible may provide, as it
were, a safety-valve for other places in the same part of the world.
Instead of a general shrinking, the materials would be sufficiently elastic
and flexible to allow the shrinking for a very large area to be done at
this particular locality. In this way we may explain the fact
that immense tracts on the earth are practically free from earthquakes of
a serious character, while in the less fortunate regions the earthquakes are
more or less perennial.
"Now, suppose an earthquake takes place in Japan, it originates a series
of vibrations through our globe. We must here distinguish between the
rocks—I might almost say the comparatively pliant rocks—which form the
earth's crust, and those which form the intensely rigid core of the interior
of our globe. The vibrations which carry the tidings of the earthquake
spread through the rocks on the surface, from the centre of the disturbance,
in gradually enlarging circles. We may liken the spread of these
vibrations to the ripples in a pool of water which diverge from the spot
where a raindrop has fallen. The vibrations transmitted by the rocks
on the surface, or on the floor of the ocean, will carry the message all
over the earth. As these rocks are flexible, at all events
by comparison with the earth's interior, the vibrations will
be correspondingly large, and will travel with vigor over land and under
sea. In due time they reach, say the Isle of Wight, where they set the
pencil of the seismometer at work. But there are different ways round
the earth from Japan to the Isle of Wight, the most direct route being across
Asia and Europe; the other route across the Pacific, America, and the
Atlantic. The vibrations will travel by both routes, and the former is
the shorter of the two."
TRANSMISSIONS OF VIBRATIONS
Some brief repetition may not here be amiss as to the products
of volcanic action, of which so much has been said in the preceding pages,
especially as many of the terms are to some extent technical in
character. The most abundant of these substances is steam or water-gas,
which, as we have seen, issues in prodigious quantities during every
eruption. But with the steam a great number of other volatile materials
frequently make their appearance. Though we have named a number of
these at the beginning of this chapter, it will not be out of order to repeat
them here. The chief among these are the acid gases known as
hydrochloric acid, sulphurous acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, carbonic acid, and
boracic acid; and with these acid gases there issue hydrogen, nitrogen
ammonia, the volatile metals arsenic, antimony, and mercury, and some
other substances. These volatile substances react upon one another,
and many new compounds are thus formed. By the action of
sulphurous acid and sulphuretted hydrogen on each other, the sulphur so
common in volcanic districts is separated and deposited. The
hydrochloric acid acts very energetically on the rocks around the vents,
uniting with the iron in them to form the yellow ferric-chloride,
which often coats the rocks round the vent and is usually mistaken
by casual observers for sulphur.
Some of the substances emitted by volcanic vents, such as hydrogen and
sulphuretted hydrogen, are inflammable, and when they issue at a high
temperature these gases burst into flame the moment that they come into
contact with the air. Hence, when volcanic fissures are watched at
night, faint lambent flames are frequently seen playing over them, and
sometimes these flames are brilliantly colored, through the presence of small
quantities of certain metallic oxides. Such volcanic flames, however,
are scarcely ever strongly luminous, and the red, glowing light which is
observed over volcanic mountains in eruption is due to quite another
cause. What is usually taken for flame during a volcanic eruption
is simply, as we have before stated, the glowing light of the surface of a
mass of red-hot lava reflected from the cloud of vapor and dust in the air,
much as the lights of a city are reflected from the water vapor of the
atmosphere during a night of fog.
Besides the volatile substances which issue from volcanic
vents, mingling with the atmosphere or condensing upon their sides,
there are many solid materials ejected, and these may accumulate
around the orifice's till they build up mountains of vast dimensions,
like Etna, Teneriffe, and Chimborazo. Some of these solid materials
are evidently fragments of the rock-masses, through which the
volcanic fissure has been rent; these fragments have been carried upwards
by the force of the steam-blast and scattered over the sides of
the volcano. But the principal portion of the solid materials
ejected from volcanic orifices consists of matter which has been
extruded from sources far beneath the surface, in highly-heated and fluid
or semi-fluid condition.
It is to these materials that the name of "lavas" is
properly applied. Lavas present a general resemblance to the slags
and clinkers which are formed in our furnaces and brick-kilns,
and consist, like them, of various stony substances which have been more
or less perfectly fused. When we come to study the chemical composition
and the microscopical structure of lavas, however, we shall find that there
are many respects in which they differ entirely from these artificial
products, they consisting chiefly of felspar, or of this substance in
association with augite or hornblende. In texture they may be stony,
glassy, resin-like, vesicular or cellular and light in weight, as in the case
of pumice or scoria.
FLOATING PUMICE
The steam and other gases rising through liquid lava are apt
to produce bubbles, yielding a surface froth or foam. This
froth varies greatly in character according to the nature of the
material from which it is formed. In the majority of cases the
lavas consist of a mass of crystals floating in a liquid magma, and
the distension of such a mass by the escape of steam from its midst gives
rise to the formation of the rough cindery-looking material to which the name
of "scoria" is applied. But when the lava contains no ready-formed
crystals, but consists entirely of a glassy substance in a more or less
perfect state of fusion, the liberation of steam gives rise to the formation
of the beautiful material known as "pumice." Pumice consists of a mass
of minute glass bubbles; these bubbles do not usually, however, retain
their globular form, but are elongated in one direction through
the movement of the mass while it is still in a plastic state.
The quantity of this substance ejected is often enormous. We have
seen to what a vast extent it was thrown out from the crater
of Krakatoa. During the year 1878, masses of floating pumice
were reported as existing in the vicinity of the Solomon Isles,
and covering the surface of the sea to such extent that it took
ships three days to force their way through them. Sometimes
this substance accumulates in such quantities along coasts that it
is difficult to determine the position of the shore within a mile or two,
as we may land and walk about on the great floating raft of pumice.
Recent deep-sea soundings, carried on in the Challenger and other vessels,
have shown that the bottom of the deepest portion of the ocean, far away from
the land, is covered with volcanic materials which have been carried through
the air or have floated on the surface of the ocean.
Fragments of scoria or pumice may be thrown hundreds or thousands of
feet into the atmosphere, those that fall into the crater and are flung up
again being gradually reduced in size by friction. Thus it is related by Mr.
Poulett Scrope, who watched the Vesuvian eruption of 1822, which lasted for
nearly a month, that during the earlier stages of the outburst fragments of
enormous size were thrown out of the crater, but by constant re-ejection
these were gradually reduced in size, till at last only the most
impalpable dust issued from the vent. This dust filled the
atmosphere, producing in the city of Naples "a darkness that might be
felt." So excessively finely divided was it, that it penetrated into
all drawers, boxes, and the most closely fastened receptacles,
filling them completely. The fragmentary materials ejected from
volcanoes are often given the name of cinders or ashes. These, however,
are terms of convenience only, and do not properly describe the volcanic
material.
Sometimes the passages of steam through a mass of molten glass produces
large quantities of a material resembling spun glass. Small particles of this
glass are carried into the air and leave behind them thin, glassy filaments
like a tail. At the volcano of Kilauea in Hawaii, this substance, as
previously stated, is abundantly produced, and is known as 'Pele's
Hair'—Pele being the name of the goddess of the mountain. Birds' nests
are sometimes found composed of this beautiful material. In recent
years an artificial substance similar to this Pele's hair has
been extensively manufactured by passing jets of steam through the molten
slag of iron-furnaces; it resembles cotton-wool, but is made up of fine
threads of glass, and is employed for the packing of boilers and other
purposes.
The lava itself, as left in huge deposits upon the surface,
assumes various forms, some crystalline, others glassy. The latter
is usually found in the condition known as obsidian, ordinarily black in
color, and containing few or no crystals. It is brittle, and splits
into sharp-edged or pointed fragments, which were used by primitive peoples
for arrow-heads, knives and other cutting implements. The ancient
Mexicans used bits of it for shaving purposes, it having an edge of
razor-like sharpness. They also used it as the cutting part of their
weapons of war.
The Active Volcanoes of the Earth.
It is not by any means an easy task to frame an estimate of
the number of volcanoes in the world. Volcanoes vary greatly in
their dimensions, from vast mountain masses, rising to a height of
nearly 25,000 feet above sea-level, to mere molehills. They
likewise exhibit every possible stage of development and decay: while
some are in a state of chronic active eruption, others are reduced to the
condition of solfataras, or vents emitting acid vapors, and others again have
fallen into a more or less complete state of ruin through the action of
denuding forces.
NUMBER OF ACTIVE VOLCANOES
Even if we confine our attention to the larger volcanoes,
which merit the name of mountains, and such of these as we have reason
to believe to be in a still active condition, our difficulties will
be diminished, but not by any means removed. Volcanoes may sink
into a dormant condition that at times endures for hundreds or
even thousands of years, and then burst forth into a state of
renewed activity; and it is quite impossible, in many cases, to
distinguish between the conditions of dormancy and extinction.
We shall, however, probably be within the limits of truth in stating
that the number of great habitual volcanic vents upon the globe which we have
reason to believe are still in active condition, is somewhere between 300 and
350. Most of these are marked by more or less considerable mountains,
composed of the materials ejected from them. But if we include
mountains which exhibit the external conical form, crater-like hollows, and
other features of volcanoes, yet concerning the activity of which we
have no record or tradition, the number will fall little, if
anything, short of 1,000.
The mountains composed of volcanic materials, but which have
lost through denudation the external form of volcanoes, are still
more numerous, and the smaller temporary openings which are
usually subordinate to the habitual vents that have been active during
the periods covered by history and tradition, must be numbered
by thousands. There are still feebler manifestations of the
volcanic forces—such as steam-jets, geysers, thermal and mineral
waters, spouting saline and muddy springs, and mud volcanoes—that may
be reckoned by millions. It is not improbable that these
less powerful manifestations of the volcanic forces to a great extent make
up in number what they want in individual energy; and the relief which they
afford to the imprisoned activities within the earth's crust may be almost
equal to that which results from the occasional outbursts at the great
habitual volcanic vents.
In taking a general survey of the volcanic phenomena of the globe, no
facts come out more strikingly than that of the very unequal distribution,
both of the great volcanoes, and of the minor exhibitions of subterranean
energy.
Thus, on the whole of the continent of Europe, there is but one habitual
volcanic vent—that of Vesuvius—and this is situated upon the shores of the
Mediterranean. In the islands of that sea, however there are no less
than six volcanoes: namely, Stromboli, and Vulcano, in the Lipari Islands;
Etna, in Sicily; Graham's Isle, a submarine volcano, off the Sicilian coast;
and Santorin and Nisyros, in the Aegean Sea.
The African continent is at present known to contain about ten active
volcanoes—four on the west coast, and six on the east coast, while about ten
other active volcanoes occur on islands close to the African coasts. On
the continent of Asia, more than twenty active volcanoes are known or
believed to exist, but no less than twelve of these are situated in the
peninsula of Kamchatka. No volcanoes are known to exist in the Australian
continent.
The American continent contains a greater number of volcanoes than the
continents of the Old World. There are twenty in North America,
twenty-five in Central America, and thirty-seven in South America.
Thus, taken altogether, there are about one hundred and seventeen volcanoes
situated on the great continental lands of the globe, while nearly twice as
many occur upon the islands scattered over the various oceans.
ASIATIC INLAND VOLCANOES
Upon examining further into the distribution of the
continental volcanoes, another very interesting fact presents itself.
The volcanoes are in almost every instance situated either close to
the coasts of the continent, or at no great distance from them.
There are, indeed, only two exceptions to this rule. In the great
and almost wholly unexplored table-land lying between Siberia and
Tibet four volcanoes are said to exist, and in the Chinese province
of Manchuria several others. More reliable information is,
however, needed concerning these volcanoes.
It is a remarkable circumstance that all the oceanic islands which are
not coral-reefs are composed of volcanic rocks; and many of these oceanic
islands, as well as others lying near the shores of the continents, contain
active volcanoes.
Through the midst of the Atlantic Ocean runs a ridge, which, by
the soundings of the various exploring vessels sent out in recent years,
has been shown to divide the ocean longitudinally into two basins. Upon
this great ridge, and the spurs proceeding from it, rise numerous mountainous
masses, which constitute the well-known Atlantic islands and groups of
islands. All of these are of volcanic origin, and among them are
numerous active volcanoes. The Island of Jan Mayen contains an active
volcano, and Iceland contains thirteen, and not improbably more; the Azores
have six active volcanoes, the Canaries three; while about eight
volcanoes lie off the west coast of Africa. In the West Indies there
are six active volcanoes; and three submarine volcanoes have been
recorded within the limits of the Atlantic Ocean. Altogether, no less
than forty active volcanoes are situated upon the great submarine
ridges which traverse the Atlantic longitudinally.
But along the same line the number of extinct volcanoes is far greater,
and there are not wanting proofs that the volcanoes which are still active
are approaching the condition of extinction.
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC
If the great medial chain of the Atlantic presents us with
an example of a chain of volcanic mountains verging on extinction, we have
in the line of islands separating the Pacific and Indian Oceans an example of
a similar range of volcanic vents which are in a condition of the greatest
activity. In the peninsula of Kamchatka there are twelve active
volcanoes, in the Aleutian Islands thirty-one, and in the peninsula of Alaska
three. The chain of the Kuriles contains at least ten active volcanoes;
the Japanese Islands and the islands to the south of Japan
twenty-five. The great group of islands lying to the south-east of the
Asiatic continent is at the present time the grandest focus of
volcanic activity upon the globe. No less than fifty active volcanoes
occur here.
Farther south, the same chain is probably continued by the four active
volcanoes of New Guinea, one or more submarine volcanoes, and several vents
in New Britain, the Solomon Isles, and the New Hebrides, the three active
volcanoes of New Zealand, and possibly by Mount Erebus and Mount Terror in
the Antarctic region. Altogether, no less than 150 active volcanoes exist in
the chain of islands which stretch from Behring's Straits down to the
Antarctic circle; and if we include the volcanoes on Indian and
Pacific Islands which appear to be situated on lines branching from
this particular band, we shall not be wrong in the assertion that
this great system of volcanic mountains includes at least one half of the
habitually active vents of the globe. In addition to the active vents,
there are here several hundred very perfect volcanic cones, many of which
appear to have recently become extinct, though some of them may be merely
dormant, biding their time.
A third series of volcanoes starts from the neighborhood of Behring's
Straits, and stretches along the whole western coast of the American
continent. This is much less continuous, but nevertheless very
important, and contains, with its branches, nearly a hundred active
volcanoes. On the north this great band is almost united with the one
we have already described by the chain of the Aleutian and Alaska
volcanoes. In British Columbia about the parallel of 60 degrees N.
there exist a number of volcanic mountains, one of which, Mount St. Elias, is
believed to be 18,000 feet in height. Farther south, in the territory
of the United States, a number of grand volcanic mountains exist, some of
which are probably still active, for geysers and other manifestations
of volcanic activity abound. From the southern extremity of
the peninsula of California an almost continuous chain of
volcanoes stretches through Mexico and Guatemala, and from this part of
the volcanic band a branch is given off which passes through the
West Indies, and contains the volcanoes which have so recently
given evidence of their vital activity.
In South America the line is continued by the active volcanoes
of Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile, but at many intermediate points in
the chain of the Andes extinct volcanoes occur, which to a great
extent fill up the gaps in the series. A small offshoot to the
westward passes through the Galapagos Islands. The great band of
volcanoes which stretches through the American continent is second only
in importance, and in the activity of its vents, to the band which divides
the Pacific from the Indian Ocean.
The third volcanic band of the globe is that, already spoken of, which
traverses the Atlantic Ocean from north to south. This series of
volcanic mountains is much more broken and interrupted than the other two,
and a greater proportion of its vents are extinct. It attained its
condition of maximum activity during the distant period of the Miocene, and
now appears to be passing into a state of gradual extinction.
Beginning in the north with the volcanic rocks of Greenland and Bear
Island, we pass southwards, by way of Jan Mayen, Iceland and the Faroe
Islands, to the Hebrides and the north of Ireland. Thence, by way of the
Azores, the Canaries and the Cape de Verde Islands, with some active vents,
we pass to the ruined volcanoes of St. Paul, Fernando de Noronha, Ascension,
St. Helena, Trinidad and Tristan da Cunha. From this great Atlantic
band two branches proceed to the eastward, one through Central Europe, where
all the vents are now extinct, and the other through the Mediterranean
to Asia Minor, the great majority of the volcanoes along the latter line
being now extinct, though a few are still active. The volcanoes on the
eastern coast of Africa may be regarded as situated on another branch from
this Atlantic volcanic band. The number of active volcanoes on this
Atlantic band and its branches, exclusive of those in the West Indies, does
not exceed fifty.
THIAN SHAN AND HAWAIIAN VOLCANOES
From what has been said, it will be seen that the volcanoes of
the globe not only usually assume a linear arrangement, but nearly
the whole of them can be shown to be thrown up along three
well-marked bands and the branches proceeding from them. The first and
most important of these bands is nearly 10,000 miles in length, and
with its branches contains more than 150 active volcanoes; the second
is 8,000 miles in length, and includes about 100 active volcanoes;
the third is much more broken and interrupted, extends to a length
of nearly 1,000 miles, and contains about 50 active vents.
The volcanoes of the eastern coast of Africa, with Mauritius,
Bourbon, Rodriguez, and the vents along the line of the Red Sea, may
be regarded as forming a fourth and subordinate band.
Thus we see that the surface of the globe is covered by a network of
volcanic bands, all of which traverse it in sinuous lines with a general
north-and-south direction, giving off branches which often run for hundreds
of miles, and sometimes appear to form a connection between the great
bands.
To this rule of the linear arrangement of the volcanic vents of
the globe, and their accumulation along certain well-marked bands, there
are two very striking exceptions, which we must now proceed to notice.
In the very centre of the continent formed by Europe and Asia,
the largest unbroken land-mass of the globe, there rises from the
great central plateau the remarkable volcanoes of the Thian Shan
Range. The existence of these volcanoes, of which only obscure
traditional accounts had reached Europe before the year 1858, appears to
be completely established by the researches of recent Russian and Swedish
travelers. Three volcanic vents appear to exist in this region, and
other volcanic phenomena have been stated to occur in the great plateau of
Central Asia, but the existence of the latter appears to rest on very
doubtful evidence. The only accounts which we have of the eruptions of
these Thian Shan volcanoes are contained in Chinese histories and treatises
on geography.
The second exceptionally situated volcanic group is that of the Hawaiian
Islands. While the Thian Shan volcanoes rise in the centre of the
largest unbroken land-mass, and stand on the edge of the loftiest and
greatest plateau in the world, the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands rise in
the northern centre of the largest ocean and from almost the greatest depths
in that ocean. All round the Hawaiian Islands the sea has a depth of
from 2,000 to 3,000 fathoms, and the island-group culminates in several
volcanic cones, which rise to the height of nearly 14,000 feet above the
sea-level. The volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands are unsurpassed in height
and bulk by those of any other part of the globe.
With the exception of the two isolated groups of the Thian Shan and the
Hawaiian Islands, nearly all the active volcanoes of the globe are situated
near the limits which separate the great land-and- water-masses of the
globe—that is to say, they occur either on the parts of continents not far
removed from their coast-lines, or on islands in the ocean not very far
distant from the shores. The fact of the general proximity of volcanoes
to the sea is one which has frequently been pointed out by geographers, and
may now be regarded as being thoroughly established.
VOLCANOES PARALLEL TO MOUNTAIN CHAINS
Many of the grandest mountain-chains have bands of volcanoes
lying parallel to them. This is strikingly exhibited by the
great mountain-masses which lie on the western side of the
American continent. The Rocky Mountains and the Andes consist of folded
and crumpled masses of altered strata which, by the action of
denuding forces, have been carved into series of ridges and summits.
At many points, however, along the sides of these great chains we
find that fissures have been opened and lines of volcanoes formed,
from which enormous quantities of lava have flowed and covered
great tracts of country.
This is especially marked in the Snake River plain of Idaho, in
the western United States. In this, and the adjoining regions
of Oregon and Washington, an enormous tract of country has been overflowed
by lava in a late geological period, the surface covered being estimated to
have a larger area than France and Great Britain combined. The Snake
River cuts through it in a series of picturesque gorges and rapids, enabling
us to estimate its thickness, which is considered to average 4000 feet.
Looked at from any point on its surface, one of these lava-plains appears
as a vast level surface, like that of a lake bottom. This
uniformity has been produced either by the lava rolling over a plain or
lake bottom, or by the complete effacement of an original,
undulating contour of the ground under hundreds or thousands of feet of
lava in successive sheets. The lava, rolling up to the base of
the mountains, has followed the sinuosities of their margin, as the waters
of a lake follow its promontories and bays. Similar conditions exist
along the Sierra Nevada range of California, and to some extent placer mining
has gone on under immense beds of lava, by a process of tunneling beneath the
volcanic rock.
In some localities the volcanoes are of such height and dimensions as to
overlook and dwarf the mountain-ranges by the side of which they lie.
Some of the volcanoes lying parallel to the great American axis appear to be
quite extinct, while others are in full activity. In the Eastern
continent we find still more striking examples of parallelism between great
mountain-chains and the lands along which volcanic activity is
exhibited—volcanoes, active or extinct, following the line of the great east
and west chains which extend through southern Europe and Asia. There
are some other volcanic bands which exhibit a similar parallelism with
mountain chains; but, on the other hand, there are volcanoes between
which and the nearest mountain-axis no such connection can be traced.
AREAS OF UPHEAVAL AND SUBSIDENCE
There is one other fact concerning the mode of distribution
of volcanoes upon the surface of the globe, to which we must allude. By a
study of the evidences presented by coral-reefs, raised beaches, submerged
forests, and other phenomena of a similar kind, it can be shown that certain
wide areas of the land and of the ocean-floor are at the present time in a
state of subsidence, while other equally large areas are being
upheaved. And the observations of the geologist prove that similar
upward and downward movements of portions of the earth's crust have been
going on through all geological times.
Now, as Mr. Darwin has so well shown in his work on "Coral Reefs," if we
trace upon a map the areas of the earth's surface which are undergoing
upheaval and subsidence respectively, we shall find that nearly all the
active volcanoes of the globe are situated upon rising areas and that
volcanic phenomena are conspicuously absent from those parts of the earth's
crust which can be proved at the present day to be undergoing
depression.
The remarkable linear arrangement of volcanic vents has a significance
that is well worthy of fuller consideration. There are facts known
which point to the cause of this state of affairs. It is not uncommon for
small cones of scoriae to be seen following lines on the flanks or at the
base of a great volcanic mountain. These are undoubtedly lines of fissure,
caused by the subterranean forces. In fact, such fissures have been
seen opening on the sides of Mount Etna, in whose bottom could be seen the
glowing lava. Along these fissures, in a few days, scoriae cones appeared; on
one occasion no less than thirty-six in number.
It is believed by geologists that the linear systems of volcanoes are
ranged along similar lines of fissure in the earth's crust—enormous breaks,
extending for thousands of miles, and the result of internal energies acting
through vast periods of time. Along these immense fissures in the
earth's rock-crust there appear, in place of small scoriae cones, great
volcanoes, built up through the ages by a series of powerful eruptions, and
only ceasing to spout fire themselves when the portion of the great crack
upon which they lie is closed. The greatest of these fissures is that
along the vast sinuous band of volcanoes extending from near the
Arctic circle at Behring's Straits to the Antarctic circle at
South Victoria Land, not far from half round the earth. It
doubtless marks the line of mighty forces which have been active for
millions of years.
The Famous Vesuvius and the Destruction of Pompeii.
The famous volcano of southern Italy named Vesuvius, which is now so
constantly in eruption, was described by the ancients as a cone- shaped
mountain with a flat top, on which was a deep circular valley filled with
vines and grass, and surrounded by high precipices. A large population
lived on the sides of the mountain, which was covered with beautiful woods,
and there were fine flourishing cities at its foot. So little was the
terrible nature of the valley on the top understood, that in A. D. 72,
Spartacus, a rebellious Roman gladiator, encamped there with some thousands
of fighting men, and the Roman soldiers were let down the precipices in
order to surprise and capture them.
There had been earthquakes around the mountain, and one of the cities
had been nearly destroyed; but no one was prepared for what occurred seven
years after the defeat of Spartacus. Suddenly, in the year 79 A. D., a
terrific rush of smoke, steam, and fire belched from the mountain's summit;
one side of the valley in which Spartacus had encamped was blown off, and its
rocks, with vast quantities of ashes, burning stones, and sand, were ejected
far into the sky. They then spread out like a vast pall, and fell
far and wide. For eight days and nights this went on, and the
enormous quantity of steam sent up, together with the deluge of rain
that fell, produced torrents on the mountain-side, which, carrying onward
the fallen ashes, overwhelmed everything in their way. Sulphurous vapors
filled the air and violent tremblings of the earth were constant.
A city six miles off was speedily rendered uninhabitable, and
was destroyed by the falling stones; but two others—Herculaneum
and Pompeii—which already had suffered from the down-pour of ashes, were
gradually filled with a flood of water, sand, and ashes, which came down the
side of the volcano, and covering them entirely.
BURIED CITIES EXCAVATED.
The difference in ease of excavation is due to the
following circumstance. Herculaneum being several miles nearer the
crater, was buried in a far more consistent substance, seemingly
composed of volcanic ashes cemented by mud; Pompeii, on the contrary,
was buried only in ashes and loose stones. The casts of statues
found in Herculaneum show the plastic character of the material that
fell there, which time has hardened to rock-like consistency.
These statues represented Hercules and Cleopatra, and the theatre proved
to be that of the long-lost city of Herculaneum. The site of Pompeii
was not discovered until forty years afterward, but work there proved far
easier than at Herculaneum, and more progress was made in bringing it back to
the light of day.
The less solid covering of Pompeii has greatly facilitated the work of
excavation, and a great part of the city has been laid bare. Many of its
public buildings and private residences are now visible, and some whole
streets have been cleared, while a multitude of interesting relics have been
found. Among those are casts of many of the inhabitants, obtained by
pouring liquid plaster into the ash moulds that remained of them. We
see them to- day in the attitude and with the expression of agony and
horror with which death met them more than eighteen centuries ago.
In succeeding eruptions much lava was poured out; and in A. D.
472, ashes were cast over a great part of Europe, so that much fear
was caused at Constantinople. The buried cities were more and
more covered up, and it was not until about A. D. 1700 that, as
above stated, the city of Herculaneum was discovered, the peasants of
the vicinity being in the habit of extracting marble from its ruins. They
had also, in the course of years, found many statues. In consequence,
an excavation was ordered by Charles III, the earliest result being the
discovery of the theatre, with the statues above named. The work of
excavation, however, has not progressed far in this city, on account of its
extreme difficulty, though various excellent specimens of art-work have been
discovered, including the finest examples of mural painting extant from
antiquity. The library was also discovered, 1803 papyri being
found. Though these had been charred to cinder, and were very difficult
to unroll and decipher, over 300 of them have been read.
PLINY'S CELEBRATED DESCRIPTION
Pliny the Younger, to whom we are indebted for the only contemporary
account of the great eruption under consideration, was at the time of its
occurrence resident with his mother at Misenum, where the Roman fleet lay,
under the command of his uncle, the great author of the "Historia
Naturalis". His account, contained in two letters to Tacitus (lib. vi.
16, 20), is not so much a narrative of the eruption, as a record of his
uncle's singular death, yet it is of great interest as yielding the
impressions of an observer. The translation which follows is adopted
from the very free version of Melmoth, except in one or two places, where
it differs much from the ordinary text. The letters are given
entire, though some parts are rather specimens of style than good
examples of description.
"Your request that I should send an account of my uncle's death,
in order to transmit a more exact relation of it to posterity, deserves my
acknowledgments; for if this accident shall be celebrated by your pen, the
glory of it, I am assured, will be rendered forever illustrious. And,
notwithstanding he perished by a misfortune which, as it involved at the same
time a most beautiful country in ruins, and destroyed so many populous
cities, seems to promise him an everlasting remembrance; notwithstanding
he has himself composed many and lasting works; yet I am persuaded
the mention of him in your immortal works will greatly contribute
to eternize his name. Happy I esteem those to be, whom Providence
has distinguished with the abilities either of doing such actions as are
worthy of being related, or of relating them in a manner worthy of being
read; but doubly happy are they who are blessed with both these talents; in
the number of which my uncle, as his own writings and your history will
prove, may justly be ranked. It is with extreme willingness, therefore,
that I execute your commands; and should, indeed, have claimed the task if
you had not enjoined it.
"He was at that time with the fleet under his command at Misenum. On the
24th of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him to observe
a cloud which appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He had just
returned from taking the benefit of the sun, and, after bathing himself in
cold water, and taking a slight repast, had retired to his study. He
immediately arose, and went out upon an eminence, from whence he might more
distinctly view this very uncommon appearance. It was not at that
distance discernible from what mountain the cloud issued, but it was
found afterward to ascend from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot give a
more exact description of its figure than by comparing it to that of
a pine tree, for it shot up to a great height in the form of a
trunk, which extended itself at the top into a sort of
branches; occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that
impelled it, the force of which decreased as it advanced upwards, or
the cloud itself being pressed back again by its own weight, and expanding
in this manner: it appeared sometimes bright, and sometimes dark and spotted,
as it was more or less impregnated with earth and cinders.
"This extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle's
philosophical curiosity to take a nearer view of it. He ordered a light
vessel to be got ready, and gave me the liberty, if I thought proper,
to attend him. I rather chose to continue my studies, for, as
it happened, he had given me an employment of that kind. As he
was passing out of the house he received dispatches: the marines
at Retina, terrified at the imminent peril (for the place lay beneath the
mountain, and there was no retreat but by ships), entreated his aid in this
extremity. He accordingly changed his first design, and what he began
with a philosophical he pursued with an heroical turn of mind.
THE VOYAGE TO STABIAE
"He ordered the galleys to put to sea, and went himself on
board with an intention of assisting not only Retina but many
other places, for the population is thick on that beautiful coast.
When hastening to the place from whence others fled with the
utmost terror, he steered a direct course to the point of danger, and
with so much calmness and presence of mind, as to be able to make
and dictate his observations upon the motion and figure of that dreadful
scene. He was now so nigh the mountain that the cinders, which grew
thicker and hotter the nearer he approached, fell into the ships, together
with pumice-stones, and black pieces of burning rock; they were in danger of
not only being left aground by the sudden retreat of the sea, but also from
the vast fragments which rolled down from the mountain, and obstructed all
the shore.
"Here he stopped to consider whether he should return back again; to
which the pilot advised him. 'Fortune,' said he, 'favors the brave;
carry me to Pomponianus.' Pomponianus was then at Stabiae, separated by
a gulf, which the sea, after several insensible windings, forms upon the
shore. He (Pomponianus) had already sent his baggage on board; for
though he was not at that time in actual danger, yet being within view of it,
and indeed extremely near, if it should in the least increase, he was
determined to put to sea as soon as the wind should change. It was
favorable, however, for carrying my uncle to Pomponianus, whom he found in
the greatest consternation. He embraced him with tenderness,
encouraging and exhorting him to keep up his spirits; and the more to
dissipate his fears he ordered, with an air of unconcern, the baths to be
got ready; when, after having bathed, he sat down to supper with
great cheerfulness, or at least (what is equally heroic) with all
the appearance of it.
"In the meantime, the eruption from Mount Vesuvius flamed out in several
places with much violence, which the darkness of the night contributed to
render still more visible and dreadful. But my uncle, in order to
soothe the apprehensions of his friend, assured him it was only the burning
of the villages, which the country people had abandoned to the flames; after
this he retired to rest, and it was most certain he was so little discomposed
as to fall into a deep sleep; for, being pretty fat, and breathing hard,
those who attended without actually heard him snore. The court which
led to his apartment being now almost filled with stones and ashes, if he
had continued there any longer it would have been impossible for him to have
made his way out; it was thought proper, therefore, to awaken him. He
got up and went to Pomponianus and the rest of his company, who were not
unconcerned enough to think of going to bed. They consulted together whether
it would be most prudent to trust to the houses, which now shook from side to
side with frequent and violent concussions; or to fly to the open fields,
where the calcined stone and cinders, though light indeed, yet fell in
large showers and threatened destruction. In this distress they
resolved for the fields as the less dangerous situation of the
two—a resolution which, while the rest of the company were hurried
into it by their fears, my uncle embraced upon cool and
deliberate consideration.
DEATH OF PLINY THE ELDER
"They went out, then, having pillows tied upon their heads
with napkins; and this was their whole defence against the storm of stones
that fell around them. It was now day everywhere else, but there a
deeper darkness prevailed than in the most obscure night; which, however, was
in some degree dissipated by torches and other lights of various kinds.
They thought proper to go down further upon the shore, to observe if they
might safely put out to sea; but they found that the waves still ran
extremely high and boisterous. There my uncle, having drunk a draught or two
of cold water, threw himself down upon a cloth which was spread for him,
when immediately the flames, and a strong smell of sulphur which was
the forerunner of them, dispersed the rest of the company, and obliged him
to rise. He raised himself up with the assistance of two of his
servants, and instantly fell down dead, suffocated, as I conjecture, by some
gross and noxious vapor, having always had weak lungs, and being frequently
subject to a difficulty of breathing.
"As soon as it was light again, which was not till the third day after
this melancholy accident, his body was found entire, and without any marks of
violence upon it, exactly in the same posture as that in which he fell, and
looking more like a man asleep than dead. During all this time my
mother and I were at Misenum. But this has no connection with your
history, as your inquiry went no farther than concerning my uncle's death;
with that, therefore, I will put an end to my letter. Suffer me only to
add, that I have faithfully related to you what I was either an eye-witness
of myself, or received immediately after the accident happened, and before
there was any time to vary the truth. You will choose out of this
narrative such circumstances as shall be most suitable to your purpose; for
there is a great difference between what is proper for a letter and a
history: between writing to a friend and writing to the public.
Farewell."
In this account, which was drawn up some years after the event, from the
recollections of a student eighteen years old, we recognize the continual
earthquakes; the agitated sea with its uplifted bed; the flames and vapors of
an ordinary eruption, probably attended by lava as well as ashes. But
it seems likely that the author's memory, or rather the information
communicated to him regarding the closing scene of Pliny's life, was
defective. Flames and sulphurous vapors could hardly be actually present
at Stabiae, ten miles from the centre of the eruption.
That lava flowed at all from Vesuvius on this occasion has been usually
denied; chiefly because at Pompeii and Herculaneum the causes of destruction
were different—ashes overwhelmed the former, mud concreted over the
latter. We observe, indeed, phenomena on the shore near Torre del Greco
which seem to require the belief that currents of lava had been solidified
there at some period before the construction of certain walls and floors, and
other works of Roman date. In the Oxford Museum, among the specimens
of lava to which the dates are assigned, is one referred to A. D. 79, but
there is no mode of proving it to have belonged to the eruption of that
date.
PLINY'S SECOND LETTER
A second letter from Pliny to Tacitus (Epist. 20) was required
to satisfy the curiosity of that historian; especially as regards
the events which happened under the eyes of his friend. Here it
is according to Melmoth:
"The letter which, in compliance with your request, I wrote to
you concerning the death of my uncle, has raised, it seems, your curiosity
to know what terrors and danger attended me while I continued at Misenum: for
there, I think, the account in my former letter broke off.
'Though my shocked soul recoils, my tongue shall tell.'
"My uncle having left us, I pursued the studies which prevented my going
with him till it was time to bathe. After which I went to supper, and
from thence to bed, where my sleep was greatly broken and disturbed.
There had been, for many days before, some shocks of an earthquake, which the
less surprised us as they are extremely frequent in Campania; but they were
so particularly violent that night, that they not only shook everything about
us, but seemed, indeed, to threaten total destruction. My mother flew
to my chamber, where she found me rising in order to awaken her. We
went out into a small court belonging to the house, which separated
the sea from the buildings. As I was at that time but eighteen
years of age, I know not whether I should call my behavior, in
this dangerous juncture, courage or rashness; but I took up Livy,
and amused myself with turning over that author, and even making extracts
from him, as if all about me had been in full security. While we were in this
posture, a friend of my uncle's, who was just come from Spain to pay him a
visit, joined us; and observing me sitting with my mother with a book in my
hand, greatly condemned her calmness at the same time that he reproved me for
my careless security. Nevertheless, I still went on with my
author.
"Though it was now morning, the light was exceedingly faint and languid;
the buildings all around us tottered; and, though we stood upon open ground,
yet as the place was narrow and confined, there was no remaining there
without certain and great danger: we therefore resolved to quit the
town. The people followed us in the utmost consternation, and, as to a
mind distracted with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its own,
pressed in great crowds about us in our way out.
"Being got to a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still, in
the midst of a most dangerous and dreadful scene. The chariots which we
had ordered to be drawn out were so agitated backwards and forwards, though
upon the most level ground, that we could not keep them steady, even by
supporting them with large stones. The sea seemed to roll back upon
itself, and to be driven from its banks by the convulsive motion of the
earth; it is certain at least that the shore was considerably enlarged, and
many sea animals were left upon it. On the other side a black and
dreadful cloud, bursting with an igneous serpentine vapor, darted out a
long train of fire, resembling flashes of lightning, but much larger.
FEAR VERSUS COMPOSURE
"Upon this the Spanish friend whom I have mentioned,
addressed himself to my mother and me with great warmth and earnestness;
'If your brother and your uncle,' said he, 'is safe, he certainly wishes
you to be so too; but if he has perished, it was his desire, no doubt, that
you might both survive him: why therefore do you delay your escape a
moment?' We could never think of our own safety, we said, while we were
uncertain of his. Hereupon our friend left us, and withdrew with the
utmost precipitation. Soon afterward, the cloud seemed to descend, and
cover the whole ocean; as it certainly did the island of Capreae, and the
promontory of Misenum. My mother strongly conjured me to make my escape
at any rate, which, as I was young, I might easily do; as for herself,
she said, her age and corpulency rendered all attempts of that
sort impossible. However, she would willingly meet death, if she
could have the satisfaction of seeing that she was not the occasion
of mine. But I absolutely refused to leave her, and taking her by
the hand, I led her on; she complied with great reluctance, and
not without many reproaches to herself for retarding my flight.
"The ashes now began to fall upon us, though in no great quantity. I
turned my head and observed behind us a thick smoke, which came rolling after
us like a torrent. I proposed, while we yet had any light, to turn out
of the high road lest she should be pressed to death in the dark by the crowd
that followed us. We had scarce stepped out of the path when darkness
overspread us, not like that of a cloudy night, or when there is no moon, but
of a room when it is all shut up and all the lights are extinct.
Nothing then was to be heard but the shrieks of women, the screams of
children and the cries of men; some calling for their children, others for
their parents, others for their husbands, and only distinguishing
each other by their voices; one lamenting his own fate, another that
of his family; some wishing to die from the very fear of dying;
some lifting their hands to the gods; but the greater part imagining that
the last and eternal night was come, which was to destroy the gods and the
world together. Among them were some who augmented the real terrors by
imaginary ones, and made the frighted multitude believe that Misenum was
actually in flames.
"At length a glimmering light appeared, which we imagined to be rather
the forerunner of an approaching burst of flames, as in truth it was, than
the return of day. However, the fire fell at distance from us; then
again we were immersed in thick darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes rained
upon us, which we were obliged every now and then to shake off, otherwise we
should have been crushed and buried in the heap.
"I might boast that, during all this scene of horror, not a sigh
or expression of fear escaped me, had not my support been founded in that
miserable, though strong, consolation that all mankind were involved in the
same calamity, and that I imagined I was perishing with the world
itself! At last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees, like
a cloud of smoke; the real day returned, and soon the sun appeared, though
very faintly, and as when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that
presented itself to our eyes (which were extremely weakened) seemed changed,
being covered over with white ashes, as with a deep snow. We returned
to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we could, and passed
an anxious night between hope and fear, for the earthquake still continued,
while several greatly excited people ran up and down, heightening their own
and their friends' calamities by terrible predictions. However, my
mother and I, notwithstanding the danger we had passed and that which still
threatened us, had no thoughts of leaving the place till we should receive
some account from my uncle.
"And now you will read this narrative without any view of inserting it
in your history, of which it is by no means worthy; and, indeed, you must
impute it to your own request if it shall not even deserve the trouble of a
letter. Farewell!"
DION CASSIUS ON THE ERUPTION
The story told by Pliny is the only one upon which we can rely. Dion
Cassius, the historian, who wrote more than a century later, does not
hesitate to use his imagination, telling us that Pompeii was buried under
showers of ashes "while all the people were sitting in the theatre."
This statement has been effectively made use of by Bulwer, in his "Last Days
of Pompeii." In this he pictures for us a gladiatorial combat in the
arena, with thousands of deeply interested spectators occupying the
surrounding seats. The novelist works his story up to a thrilling climax in
which the volcano plays a leading part.
This is all very well as a vivid piece of fiction, but it does
not accord with fact, since Dion Cassius was undoubtedly incorrect in his
statement. We now know from the evidence furnished by the excavations
that none of the people were destroyed in the theatres, and, indeed, that
there were very few who did not escape from both cities. It is very
likely that many of them returned and dug down for the most valued treasures
in their buried habitations. Dion Cassius may have obtained the
material for his accounts from the traditions of the descendants of
survivors, and if so he shows how terrible must have been the impression made
upon their minds. He assures us that during the eruption a multitude of
men of superhuman nature appeared, sometimes on the mountain and
sometimes in the environs, that stones and smoke were thrown out, the sun
was hidden, and then the giants seemed to rise again, while the sounds of
trumpets were heard.
LAKE AVERNUS
Not far from Vesuvius lay the famous Lake Avernus, whose name
was long a popular synonym for the infernal regions. The lake
is harmless today, but its reputation indicates that it was not always
so. There is every reason to believe that it hides the outlet of an
extinct volcano, and that long after the volcano ceased to be active it
emitted gases as fatal to animal life as those suffocating vapors which
annihilated all the cattle on the Island of Lancerote, in the Canaries, in
the year 1730. Its name signifies "birdless," indicating that its
ascending vapors were fatal to all birds that attempted to fly above its
surface.
In the superstition of the Middle Ages Vesuvius assumed the character
which had before been given to Avernus, and was regarded as the mouth of
hell. Cardinal Damiano, in a letter to Pope Nicholas II., written about
the year 1060 tells the story of how a priest, who had left his mother ill at
Beneventum, went on his homeward way to Naples past the crater of Vesuvius,
and heard issuing therefrom the voice of his mother in great agony.
He afterward found that her death coincided exactly with the time at which
he had heard her voice.
A trip to the summit of Vesuvius is one of the principal attractions for
strangers who are visiting Naples. There is a fascination about that
awful slayer of cities which few can resist, and no less attractive is the
city of Pompeii, now largely laid bare after being buried for eighteen
centuries. We are indebted to Henry Haynie for the following
interesting description: "Once seen, it will never be forgotten. It is
full of suggestions. It kindles emotions that are worth the kindling,
and brings on dreams that are worth the dreaming. Of the three places
overwhelmed, Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabiae, the last scarcely repays
excavation in one sense, and the first in another; but to watch the diggers
at Pompeii is fascinating, even when there is no reasonable expectation of
a find. Herculaneum was buried with lava, or rather with tufa, and it
is so very hard that the expense of uncovering of only a small part of that
city has been very great.
HOW POMPEII IMPRESSES ITS VISITORS
"Pompeii was smothered in ashes, however, and most of it
is uncovered now. But while there is much that is fascinating,
and all of it is instructive, there is nothing grand or awe-inspiring in
the ruins of Pompeii. No visitor stands breathless as in the great hall
of Karnak or in the once dreadful Coliseum at Rome, or dreams with sensuous
delight as before the Jasmine Court at Agra.
"The weirdness of the scene possesses us as a haunted
chamber might. We have before us the narrow lanes, paved with tufa,
in which Roman wagon wheels have worn deep ruts. We cross streets
on stepping-stones which sandaled feet ages ago polished. We see
the wine shops with empty jars, counters stained with liquor, stone mills
where the wheat was ground, and the very ovens in which bread was baked more
than eighteen centuries ago. 'Welcome' is offered us at one silent,
broken doorway; at another we are warned to 'Beware of the dog!' The
painted figures,—some of them so artistic and rich in colors that pictures
of them are disbelieved,—the mosaic pavements, the empty fountains, the
altars and household gods, the marble pillars and the small gardens are
there just as the owners left them. Some of the walls are scribbled
over by the small boys of Pompeii in strange chara
