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+***The Project Gutenberg Etext of The San Francisco Calamity***
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+The San Francisco Calamity
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+Edited by Charles Morris
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+December, 1998  [Etext #1560]
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+
+THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY BY EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE
+
+
+A Complete and Accurate Account of the Fearful Disaster which
+Visited the Great City and the Pacific Coast, the Reign of Panic
+and Lawlessness, the Plight of 300,000 Homeless People and the
+World-wide Rush to the Rescue.
+
+TOLD BY EYE WITNESSES
+
+INCLUDING GRAPHIC AND RELIABLE ACCOUNTS OF ALL GREAT EARTHQUAKES
+AND VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE WORLD'S HISTORY, AND SCIENTIFIC
+EXPLANATIONS OF THEIR CAUSES.
+
+EDITED BY
+
+CHARLES MORRIS, LL. D.
+
+
+
+
+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 to-day, 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
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FIGHTING FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+DISASTER SPREADS OVER THE GOLDEN STATE
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE EARTHQUAKE WAVE FELT AROUND THE WORLD
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+VESUVIUS DEVASTATES THE REGION OF NAPLES
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE CHARLESTON AND OTHER EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE VOLCANO AND THE EARTHQUAKE, EARTH'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTION
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE THEORIES OF VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+SKAPTER JOKULL AND HECLA, THE GREAT ICELANDIC VOLCANOES
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+VOLCANOES OF THE PHILIPPINES AND OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDS
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS AND KILAUEA'S LAKE OF FIRE
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+POPOCATEPETL AND OTHER VOLCANOES OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH IN 1902
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+ST. VINCENT ISLAND AND MONT SOUFRIERE IN 1812
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SUBMARINE VOLCANOES AND THEIR WORK OF ISLAND-BUILDING
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+MUD VOLCANOES, GEYSERS AND HOT SPRINGS
+
+
+
+THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY BY EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+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 to-day, 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 to-day.
+
+
+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 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 to-day 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+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 to-day 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+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 per cent. 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+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 to-day.  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 per
+cent. 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+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 to-day 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.
+
+"To-day 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+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 per cent. 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+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 to-day.
+
+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 to-day,
+however, has reached a stage of perfection where close
+approximations are obtained in the records made.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+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.  To-day 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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+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 to-day, 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 characters which mock
+modern erudition.  In places we read the advertisements of
+gladiatorial shows, never to come off, the names of candidates for
+legislative office who were never to sit.  There is nothing like
+this elsewhere.
+
+"The value of Pompeii to those classic students who would
+understand, not the speech only, but the life and the every-day
+habits, of the ancient world, is too high for reckoning.  Its
+inestimable evidence may be seen in the fact that any high-school
+boy can draw the plan of a Roman house, while ripest scholars
+hesitate on the very threshold of a Greek dwelling.  This is
+because no Hellenic Pompeii has yet been discovered, but thanks to
+the silent city close to the beautiful Bay of Naples, the Latin
+house is known from ostium to porticus, from the front door to the
+back garden wall.
+
+
+STREETS AND HOUSES OF POMPEII
+
+
+"The streets of Pompeii must have had a charm unapproached by those
+of any city now in existence.  The stores, indeed, were wretched
+little dens.  Two or three of them commonly occupied the front of a
+house on either side of the entrance, the ostium; but when the door
+lay open, as was usually the case, a passerby could look into the
+atrium, prettily decorated and hung with rich stuffs.  The sunshine
+entered through an aperture in the roof, and shone on the waters of
+the impluvium, the mosaic floor, the altar of the household gods
+and the flowers around the fountain.
+
+"As the life of the Pompeiians was all outdoors, their pretty homes
+stood open always.  There was indeed a curtain betwixt the atrium
+and the peristyle, but it was drawn only when the master gave a
+banquet.  Thus a wayfarer in the street could see, beyond the hall
+described and its busy servants, the white columns of the
+peristyle, with creepers trained about them, flowers all around,
+and jets of water playing through pipes which are still in place.
+In many cases the garden itself could be observed between the
+pillars of the further gallery, and rich paintings on the wall
+beyond that.
+
+"But how far removed those little palaces of Pompeii were from our
+notion of well-being is scarcely to be understood by one who has
+not seen them.  It is a question strange in all points of view
+where the family slept in the houses, nearly all of which had no
+second story.  In the most graceful villas the three to five
+sleeping chambers round the atrium and four round the peristyle
+were rather ornamental cupboards than aught else.  One did not
+differ from another, and if these were devoted to the household the
+slaves, male and female, must have slept on the floor outside.  The
+master, his family and his guest used these small, dark rooms,
+which were apparently without such common luxuries as we expect in
+the humblest home.  All their furniture could hardly have been more
+than a bed and a footstool; but it should be remembered that the
+public bath was a daily amusement.  The kitchen of each villa
+certainly was not furnished with such ingenuity, expense or thought
+as the stories of Roman gormandising would have led us to expect.
+In the house of the Aedile--so called from the fact that 'Pansam
+Aed.' is inscribed in red characters by the doorway--the cook seems
+to have been employed in frying eggs at the moment when increasing
+danger put him to flight.  His range, four partitions of brick, was
+very small; a knife, a strainer, a pan lay by the fire just as they
+fell from the slave's hand."
+
+
+VALUE OF THE DISCOVERY OF POMPEII
+
+
+This description strongly presents to us the principal value of the
+discovery of Pompeii.  Interesting as are the numerous works of art
+found in its habitations, and important as is their bearing upon
+some branches of the art of the ancient world, this cannot compare
+in interest with the flood of light which is here thrown on ancient
+life in all its details, enabling us to picture to ourselves the
+manners and habits of life of a cultivated and flourishing
+population at the beginning of the Christian era, to an extent
+which no amount of study of ancient history could yield.
+
+Looking upon the work of the volcano as essentially destructive, as
+we naturally do, we have here a valuable example of its power as a
+preservative agent; and it is certainly singular that it is to a
+volcano we owe much of what we know concerning the cities,
+dwellings and domestic life of the people of the Roman Empire.
+
+It would be very fortunate for students of antiquity if similar
+disasters had happened to cities in other ancient civilized lands,
+however unfortunate it might have been to their inhabitants.  But
+doubtless we are better off without knowledge gained from ruins
+thus produced.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+Eruptions of Vesuvius, Etna and Stromboli.
+
+
+Mount Vesuvius is of especial interest as being the only active
+volcano on the continent of Europe--all others of that region being
+on the islands of the Mediterranean--and for the famous ancient
+eruption described in the last chapter.  Before this it had borne
+the reputation of being extinct, but since then it has frequently
+shown that its fires have not burned out, and has on several
+occasions given a vigorous display of its powers.
+
+During the fifteen hundred years succeeding the destructive event
+described eruptions were of occasional occurrence, though of no
+great magnitude.  But throughout the long intervals when Vesuvius
+was at rest it was noted that Etna and Ischia were more or less
+disturbed.
+
+
+THE BIRTH OF MONTE NUOVO
+
+
+In 1538 a startling evidence was given that there was no decline of
+energy in the volcanic system of Southern Italy.  This was the
+sudden birth of the mountain still known as Monte Nuovo, or New
+Mountain, which was thrown up in the Campania near Avernus, on the
+spot formerly occupied by the Lucrine Lake.
+
+For about two years prior to this event the district had been
+disturbed by earthquakes, which on September 27 and 28, 1538,
+became almost continuous.  The low shore was slightly elevated, so
+that the sea retreated, leaving bare a strip about two hundred feet
+in width.  The surface cracked, steam escaped, and at last, early
+on the morning of the 29th, a greater rent was made, from which
+were vomited furiously "smoke, fire, stones and mud composed of
+ashes, making at the time of its opening a noise like the loudest
+thunder."
+
+The ejected material in less than twelve hours built the hill which
+has lasted substantially in the same form to our day.  It is a
+noteworthy fact that since the formation of Monte Nuovo there has
+been no volcanic disturbance in any part of the Neapolitan district
+except in Vesuvius, which for five centuries previous had remained
+largely at rest.
+
+
+LAVA FROM VESUVIUS
+
+
+The first recognised appearance of lava in the eruptions of
+Vesuvius was in the violent eruption of 1036.  This was succeeded
+at intervals by five other outbreaks, none of them of great energy.
+After 1500 the crater became completely quiet, the whole mountain
+in time being grown over with luxuriant vegetation, while by the
+next century the interior of the crater became green with
+shrubbery, indicating that no injurious gases were escaping.
+
+This was sleep, not death.  In 1631 the awakening came in an
+eruption of terrible violence.  Almost in a moment the green mantle
+of woodland and shrubbery was torn away and death and destruction
+left where peace and safety had seemed assured.
+
+Seven streams of lava poured from the crater and swept rapidly down
+the mountain side, leaving ruin along their paths.  Resina,
+Granasello and Torre del Greco, three villages that had grown up
+during the period of quiescence, were more or less overwhelmed by
+the molten lava.  Great torrents of hot water also poured out,
+adding to the work of desolation.  It was estimated that eighteen
+thousand of the inhabitants were killed.
+
+What made the horror all the greater was a frightful error of
+judgment, similar to that of the Governor of Martinique at St.
+Pierre.  The Governor of Torre del Greco had refused to be warned
+in time, and prevented the people from making their escape until it
+was too late.  Not until the lava had actually reached the walls
+was the order for departure given.  Before the order could be acted
+upon the molten streams burst through the walls into the crowded
+streets, and overwhelmed the vast majority of the inhabitants.
+
+In this violent paroxysm the whole top of the mountain is said to
+have been swept away, the new crater which took the place of the
+old one being greatly lowered.  From that date Vesuvius has never
+been at rest for any long interval, and eruptions of some degree of
+violence have been rarely more than a few years apart.  Of its
+various later manifestations of energy we select for description
+that of 1767, of which an interesting account by a careful observer
+is extant.
+
+
+GREAT ERUPTION OF 1767
+
+
+From the 10th of December, 1766, to March, 1767, Vesuvius was
+quiet; then it began to throw up stones from time to time.  In
+April the throws were more frequent, and at night the red glare
+grew stronger on the cloudy columns which hung over the crater.
+These repeated throws of cinders, ashes and pumice-stones so much
+increased the small cone of eruption which had been left in the
+centre of the flat crateral space that its top became visible at a
+distance.
+
+On the 7th of August there issued a small stream of lava from a
+breach in the side of a small cone; the lava gradually filled the
+space between the cone and the crateral edge; on the 12th of
+September it overflowed the crater, and ran down the mountain.
+Stones were ejected which took ten seconds in their fall, from
+which it may be computed that the height which the stones reached
+was 1,600 feet.  Padre Torre, a great observer of Vesuvius, says
+they went up above a thousand feet.  The lava ceased on the 18th of
+October, but at 8 A. M. on the 19th it rushed out at a different
+place, after volleys of stones had been thrown to an immense
+height, and the huge traditional pine-tree of smoke reappeared.  On
+this occasion that vast phantom extended its menacing shadow over
+Capri, at a distance of twenty-eight miles from Vesuvius.
+
+The lava at first came out of a mouth about one hundred yards below
+the crater, on the side toward Monte Somma.  While occupied in
+viewing this current, the observer heard a violent noise within the
+mountain; saw it split open at the distance of a quarter of a mile,
+and saw from the new mouth a mountain of liquid fire shoot up many
+feet, and then, like a torrent, roll on toward him.  The earth
+shook; stones fell thick around him; dense clouds of ashes darkened
+the air; loud thunders came from the mountain top, and he took to
+precipitate flight.  The Padre's account is too lively and
+instructive for his own words to be omitted.
+
+
+PADRE TORRE'S NARRATIVE
+
+
+"I was making my observations upon the lava, which had already,
+from the spot where it first broke out, reached the valley, when,
+on a sudden, about noon, I heard a violent noise within the
+mountain, and at a spot about a quarter of a mile off the place
+where I stood the mountain split; and with much noise, from this
+new mouth, a fountain of liquid fire shot up many feet high, and
+then like a torrent rolled on directly towards us.  The earth shook
+at the same time that a volley of stones fell thick upon us; in an
+instant clouds of black smoke and ashes caused almost a total
+darkness; the explosions from the top of the mountain were much
+louder than any thunder I ever heard, and the smell of the sulphur
+was very offensive.  My guide, alarmed, took to his heels; and I
+must confess that I was not at my ease.  I followed close, and we
+ran near three miles without stopping; as the earth continued to
+shake under our feet, I was apprehensive of the opening of a fresh
+mouth which might have cut off our retreat.
+
+"I also feared that the violent explosions would detach some of the
+rocks off the mountain of Somma, under which we were obliged to
+pass; besides, the pumice-stones, falling upon us like hail, were
+of such a size as to cause a disagreeable sensation in the part
+upon which they fell.  After having taken breath, as the earth
+trembled greatly I thought it most prudent to leave the mountain
+and return to my villa, where I found my family in great alarm at
+the continual and violent explosions of the volcano, which shook
+our house to its very foundation, the doors and windows swinging
+upon their hinges.
+
+"About two of the clock in the afternoon (19th) another lava stream
+forced its way out of the same place from whence came the lava of
+last year, so that the conflagration was soon as great on this side
+of the mountain as on the other which I had just left.  I observed
+on my way to Naples, which was in less than two hours after I had
+left the mountain, that the lava had actually covered three miles
+of the very road through which we had retreated.  This river of
+lava in the Atrio del Cavallo was sixty or seventy feet deep, and
+in some places nearly two miles broad.  Besides the explosions,
+which were frequent, there was a continued subterranean and violent
+rumbling noise, which lasted five hours in the night,--supposed to
+arise from contact of the lava with rain-water lodged in cavities
+within.  The whole neighborhood was shaken violently; Portici and
+Naples were in the extremity of alarm; the churches were filled;
+the streets were thronged with processions of saints, and various
+ceremonies were performed to quell the fury of the mountain.
+
+"In the night of the 20th, the occasion being critical, the
+prisoners in the public jail attempted to escape, and the mob set
+fire to the gates of the residence of the Cardinal Archbishop
+because he refused to bring out the relics of St. Januarius.  The
+21st was a quieter day, but the whole violence of the eruption
+returned on the 22d, at 10 A. M., with the same thundering noise,
+but more violent and alarming.  Ashes fell in abundance in the
+streets of Naples, covering the housetops and balconies an inch
+deep.  Ships at sea, twenty leagues from Naples, were covered with
+them.
+
+"In the midst of these horrors, the mob, growing tumultuous and
+impatient, obliged the Cardinal to bring out the head of St.
+Januarius, at the extremity of Naples, toward Vesuvius; and it is
+well attested here that the eruption ceased the moment the saint
+came in sight of the mountain.  It is true the noise ceased about
+that time after having lasted five hours, as it had done the
+preceding days.
+
+"On the 23d the lava still ran, but on the 24th it ceased; but
+smoke continued.  On the 25th there rose a vast column of black
+smoke, giving out much forked lightning with thunder, in a sky
+quite clear except for the smoke of the volcano.  On the 26th smoke
+continued, but on the 27th the eruption came to an end."
+
+This eruption was also described by Sir William Hamilton, who
+continued to keep a close watch on the movements of the volcano for
+many years.  The next outbreak of especial violence took place in
+1779, when what seemed to the eye a column of fire ascended two
+miles high, while cinder fragments fell far and wide, destroying
+the hopes of harvest throughout a wide district.  They fell in
+abundance thirty miles distant, and the dust of the explosion was
+carried a hundred miles away.
+
+In 1793 the crater became active again, and in 1794 after a period
+of short tranquillity or comparative inaction, the mountain again
+became agitated, and one of the most formidable eruptions known in
+the history of Vesuvius began.  It was in some respects unlike many
+others, being somewhat peculiar as to the place of its outburst,
+the temperature of the lava, and the course of the current.
+Breislak, an Italian geologist, observed the characteristic
+phenomena with the eye of science, and his account supplies many
+interesting facts.
+
+
+BREISLAK ON THE ERUPTION OF 1794
+
+
+Breislak remarked certain changes in the character of the earth's
+motions during this six hours' eruption, which led him to some
+particular conjecture of the cause.  At the beginning the trembling
+was continual, and accompanied by a hollow noise, similar to that
+occasioned by a river falling into a subterranean cavern.  The
+lava, at the time of its being disgorged, from the impetuous and
+uninterrupted manner in which it was ejected, causing it to strike
+violently against the walls of the vent, occasioned a continual
+oscillation of the mountain.  Toward the middle of the night this
+vibratory motion ceased, and was succeeded by distant shocks.  The
+fluid mass, diminished in quantity, now pressed less violently
+against the walls of the aperture, and no longer issued in a
+continual and gushing stream, but only at intervals, when the
+interior fermentation elevated the boiling matter above the mouth.
+About 4 A. M. the shocks began to be less numerous, and the
+intervals between them rendered their force and duration more
+perceptible.
+
+During this tremendous eruption at the base of the Vesuvian cone,
+and the fearful earthquakes which accompanied it, the summit was
+tranquil.  The sky was serene, the stars were brilliant, and only
+over Vesuvius hung a thick, dark smoke-cloud, lighted up into an
+auroral arch by the glare of a stream of fire more than two miles
+long, and more than a quarter of a mile broad.  The sea was calm,
+and reflected the red glare; while from the source of the lava came
+continual jets of uprushing incandescent stones.  Nearer to view,
+Torre del Greco in flames, and clouds of black smoke, with falling
+houses, presented a dark and tragical foreground, heightened by the
+subterranean thunder of the mountain, and the groans and
+lamentations of fifteen thousand ruined men, women and children.
+
+The heavy clouds of ashes which were thrown out on this occasion
+gathered in the early morning into a mighty shadow over Naples and
+the neighborhood; the sun rose pale and obscure, and a long, dim
+twilight reigned afterward.
+
+Such were the phenomena on the western side of Vesuvius.  They were
+matched by others on the eastern aspect, not visible at Naples,
+except by reflection of their light in the atmosphere.  The lava on
+this side flowed eastward, along a route often traversed by lava,
+by the broken crest of the Cognolo and the valley of Sorienta.  The
+extreme length to which this current reached was not less than an
+Italian mile.  The cubic content was estimated to be half that
+already assigned to the western currents.  Taken together they
+amounted to 20,744,445 cubic metres, or 2,804,440 cubic fathoms;
+the constitution of the lava being the same in each, both springing
+from one deep-seated reservoir of fluid rock.
+
+The eruption of lava ceased on the 16th, and then followed heavy
+discharges of ashes, violent shocks of earthquakes, thunder and
+lightning in the columns of vapors and ashes, and finally heavy
+rains, lasting till the 3d of July.  The barometer during all the
+eruption was steady.
+
+Breislak made an approximate calculation of the quantity of ashes
+which fell on Vesuvius during this great eruption, and states the
+result as equal to what would cover a circular area 6 kilometres
+(about 3 1/2 English miles) in radius, and 39 centimetres (about 15
+inches) in depth.
+
+
+STRANGE EFFECTS
+
+
+Among the notable things which attended this eruption, it is
+recorded that in Torre del Greco metallic and other substances
+exposed to the current were variously affected.  Silver was melted,
+glass became porcelain, iron swelled to four times its volume and
+lost its texture.  Brass was decomposed, and its constituent copper
+crystallized in cubic and octahedral forms aggregated in beautiful
+branches.  Zinc was sometimes turned to blende.  During the
+eruption, the lip of the crater toward Bosco Tre Case on the south
+east, fell in, or was thrown off, and the height of that part was
+reduced 426 feet.
+
+On the 17th, the sea was found in a boiling state 100 yards off the
+new promontory made by the lava of Torre del Greco, and no boat
+could remain near it on account of the melting of the pitch in her
+bottom.  For nearly a month after the eruption vast quantities of
+fine white ashes, mixed with volumes of steam, were thrown out from
+the crater; the clouds thus generated were condensed into heavy
+rain, and large tracts of the Vesuvian slopes were deluged with
+volcanic mud.  It filled ravines, such as Fosso Grande, and
+concreted and hardened there into pumiceous tufa--a very
+instructive phenomenon.
+
+Immense injury was done to the rich territory of Somma, Ottajano
+and Bosco by heavy rains, which swept along cinders, broke up the
+road and bridges, and overturned trees and houses for the space of
+fifteen days.
+
+There were few years during the nineteenth century in which
+Vesuvius did not show symptoms of its internal fires, and at
+intervals it manifested much activity, though not equaling the
+terrible eruptions of its past history.  The severest eruptions in
+that century were those of 1871 and 1876.  In the first a sudden
+emission of lava killed twenty spectators at the mouth of the
+crater, and only spent its fury after San Sebastian and Massa had
+been well nigh annihilated.  Fragments of rock were thrown up to
+the height of 4,000 feet, and the explosions were so violent that
+the whole countryside fled panic stricken to Naples.  The activity
+of the volcano, accompanied by distinct shocks of earthquake,
+lasted for a week.
+
+In 1876, for three weeks together, lava streamed down the side of
+Vesuvius, sweeping away the village of Cercolo and running nearly
+to the sea at Ponte Maddaloni.  There were then formed ten small
+craters within the greater one.  But these were united by a later
+eruption in 1888, and pressure from beneath formed a vast cone
+where they had been.
+
+
+HARDIHOOD OF THE PEOPLE
+
+
+It may seem strange that so dangerous a neighborhood should be
+inhabited.  But so it is.  Though Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae
+lie buried beneath the mud and ashes belched out of the mouth of
+Vesuvius, the villages of Portici and Revina, Torre del Greco and
+Torre del Annunziata have taken their place, and a large
+population, cheerful and prosperous, flourishes around the
+disturbed mountain and over the district of which it is the
+somewhat untrustworthy safety-valve.
+
+It is thus that man, in his eagerness to cultivate all available
+parts of the earth, dares the most frightful perils and ventures
+into the most threatening situations, seeking to snatch the means
+of life from the very jaws of death.  The danger is soon forgotten,
+the need of cultivation of the ground is ever pressing, and no
+threats of peril seem capable of restraining the activity of man
+for many years.  Though the proposition of abandoning the Island of
+Martinique has been seriously considered, the chances are that,
+before many years have passed, a cheerful and busy population will
+be at work again on the flanks of Mont Pelee.
+
+
+MOUNT ETNA
+
+
+On the eastern coast of the Island of Sicily, and not far from the
+sea, rises in solitary grandeur Mount Etna, the largest and highest
+of European volcanoes.  Its height above the level of the sea is a
+little over 10,870 feet, considerably above the limit of perpetual
+snow.  It accordingly presents the striking phenomenon of volcanic
+vapors ascending from a snow-clad summit.  The base of the mountain
+is eighty-seven miles in circumference, and nearly circular; but
+there is a wide additional extent all around overspread by its
+lava.  The lower portions of the mountain are exceedingly fertile,
+and richly adorned with corn-fields, vineyards, olive-groves and
+orchards.  Above this region are extensive forests, chiefly of oak,
+chestnut, and pine, with here and there clumps of cork-trees and
+beech.  In this forest region are grassy glades, which afford rich
+pasture to numerous flocks.  Above the forest lies a volcanic
+desert, covered with black lava and slag.  Out of this region,
+which is comparatively flat rises the principal cone, about 1,100
+feet in height, having on its summit the crater, whence sulphurous
+vapors are continually evolved.
+
+The great height of Etna has exerted a remarkable influence on its
+general conformation: for the volcanic forces have rarely been of
+sufficient energy to throw the lava quite up to the crater at the
+summit.  The consequence has been, that numerous subsidiary craters
+and cones have been formed all around the flanks of the mountain,
+so that it has become rather a cluster of volcanoes than a single
+volcanic cone.
+
+The eruptions of this mountain have been numerous, records of them
+extending back to several centuries before the Christian era, while
+unrecorded ones doubtless took place much further back.  After the
+beginning of the Christian era, and more especially after the
+breaking forth of Vesuvius in 79 A. D., Etna enjoyed longer
+intervals of repose.  Its eruptions since that time have
+nevertheless been numerous--more especially during the intervals
+when Vesuvius was inactive--there being a sort of alternation
+between the periods of great activity of the two mountains;
+although there are not a few instances of their having been both in
+action at the same time.
+
+
+SIMILARITY IN ETNA'S ERUPTIONS
+
+
+There is a great similarity in the character of the eruptions of
+Etna.  Earthquakes presage the outburst, loud explosions follow,
+rifts and bocche del fuoco open in the sides of the mountain;
+smoke, sand, ashes and scoriae are discharged, the action localizes
+itself in one or more craters, cinders are thrown up and accumulate
+around the crater and cone, ultimately lava rises and frequently
+breaks down one side of the cone where the resistance is least;
+then the eruption is at an end.
+
+Smyth says: "The symptoms which precede an eruption are generally
+irregular clouds of smoke, ferilli or volcanic lightnings, hollow
+intonations and local earthquakes that often alarm the surrounding
+country as far as Messina, and have given the whole province the
+name of Val Demone, as being the abode of infernal spirits.  These
+agitations increase until the vast cauldron becomes surcharged with
+the fused minerals, when, if the convulsion is not sufficiently
+powerful to force them from the great crater (which, from its great
+altitude and the weight of the candent matter, requires an uncommon
+effort), they explode through that part of the side which offers
+the least resistance with a grand and terrific effect, throwing
+red-hot stones and flakes of fire to an incredible height, and
+spreading ignited cinders and ashes in every direction."
+
+After the eruption of ashes, lava frequently follows, sometimes
+rising to the top of the cone of cinders, at others disrupting it
+on the least resisting side.  When the lava has reached the base of
+the cone it begins to flow down the mountain, and, being then in a
+very fluid state, it moves with great velocity.  As it cools, the
+sides and surface begin to harden, its velocity decreases, and
+after several days it moves only a few yards an hour.  The internal
+portions, however, part slowly with their heat, and months after
+the eruption clouds of steam arise from the black and externally
+cold lava-beds after rain; which, having penetrated through the
+cracks, has found its way to the heated mass within.
+
+
+THE ERUPTION OF 1669
+
+
+The most memorable of the eruptions of Etna was that which elevated
+the double cone of Monte Rossi and destroyed a large part of the
+city of Catania.  It happened in the year 1669, and was preceded by
+an earthquake, which overthrew the town of Nicolosi, situated ten
+miles inland from Catania, and about twenty miles from the top of
+Etna.  The eruption began with the sudden opening of an enormous
+fissure, extending from a little way above Nicolosi to within about
+a mile of the top of the principal cone, its length being twelve
+miles, its average breadth six feet, its depth unknown.
+
+We have a more detailed account of this eruption than of any
+preceding one, as it was observed by men of science from various
+countries.  The account from which we select is that of Alfonso
+Borelli, Professor of Mathematics in Catania.
+
+From the fissure above mentioned, he says, there came a bright
+light.  Six mouths opened in a line with it and emitted vast
+columns of smoke, accompanied by loud bellowings which could be
+heard forty miles off.  Towards the close of the day a crater
+opened about a mile below the others, which ejected red-hot stones
+to a considerable distance, and afterward sand and ashes which
+covered the country for a distance of sixty miles.  The new crater
+soon vomited forth a torrent of lava which presented a front of two
+miles; it encircled Monpilieri, and afterward flowed towards
+Belpasso, a town of 8,000 inhabitants, which was speedily
+destroyed.  Seven mouths of fire opened around the new crater, and
+in three days united with it, forming one large crater 800 feet in
+diameter.  All this time the torrent of lava continued to descend,
+it destroying the town of Mascalucia on the 23d of March.  On the
+same day the crater cast up great quantities of sand, ashes and
+scoriae, and formed above itself the great double-coned hill now
+called Monte Rossi, from the red color of the ashes of which it is
+mainly composed.
+
+
+VILLAGES AND CITIES BURIED
+
+
+On the 25th very violent earthquakes occurred, and the cone above
+the great central crater was shaken down into the crater for the
+fifth time since the first century A. D.  The original current of
+lava divided into three streams, one of which destroyed San Pietro,
+the second Camporotondo, and the third the lands about Mascalucia
+and afterward the village of Misterbianco.  Fourteen villages were
+altogether destroyed, and the lava flowed toward Catania.  At
+Albanelli, two miles from the city, it undermined a hill covered
+with cornfields and carried it forward a considerable distance.  A
+vineyard was also seen to be floating on its fiery surface.  When
+the lava reached the walls of Catania, it accumulated without
+progression until it rose to the top of the wall, 60 feet in
+height, and it then fell over in a fiery cascade and overwhelmed a
+part of the city.  Another portion of the same stream threw down
+120 feet of the wall and flowed into the city.
+
+On the 23d of April the lava reached the sea, which it entered as a
+stream 600 yards broad and 40 feet deep.  The stream had moved at
+the rate of thirteen miles in twenty days, but as it cooled it
+moved less quickly, and during the last twenty-three days of its
+course, it advanced only two miles.  On reaching the sea the water,
+of course, began to boil violently, and clouds of steam arose,
+carrying with them particles of scoriae.  Towards the end of April
+the stream on the west side of Catania, which had appeared to be
+consolidated, again burst forth, and flowed into the garden of the
+Benedictine Monastery of San Niccola, and then branched off into
+the city.  Attempts were made to build walls to arrest its
+progress.
+
+An attempt of another kind was made by a gentleman of Catania,
+named Pappalardo, who took fifty men with him, having previously
+provided them with skins for protection from the intense heat and
+with crowbars to effect an opening in the lava.  They pierced the
+solid outer crust of solidified lava, and a rivulet of the molten
+interior immediately gushed out and flowed in the direction of
+Paterno, whereupon 500 men of that town, alarmed for its safety,
+took up arms and caused Pappalardo and his men to desist.  The lava
+did not altogether stop for four months, and two years after it had
+ceased to flow it was found to be red hot beneath the surface.
+Even eight years after the eruption quantities of steam escaped
+from the lava after a shower of rain.
+
+
+THE STONES EJECTED
+
+
+The stones which were ejected from the crater during this eruption
+were often of considerable magnitude, and Borelli calculated that
+the diameter of one which he saw was 50 feet; it was thrown to a
+distance of a mile, and as it fell it penetrated the earth to a
+depth of 23 feet.  The volume of lava emitted during the eruption
+amounted to many millions of cubic feet.  Ferara considers that the
+length of the stream was at least fifteen miles, while its average
+width was between two and three miles, so that it covered at least
+forty square miles of surface.
+
+Among the towns overflowed by this great eruption was Mompilieri.
+Thirty-five years afterward, in 1704, an excavation was made on the
+site of the principal church of this place, and at the depth of
+thirty-five feet the workmen came upon the gate, which was adorned
+with three statues.  From under an arch which had been formed by
+the lava, one of these statues, with a bell and some coins, were
+extracted in good preservation.  This fact is remarkable; for in a
+subsequent eruption, which happened in 1766, a hill about fifty
+feet in height, being surrounded on either side by two streams of
+lava, was in a quarter of an hour swept along by the current.  The
+latter event may be explained by supposing that the hill in
+question was cavernous in its structure, and that the lava,
+penetrating into the cavities, forced asunder their walls, and so
+detached the superincumbent mass from its supports.
+
+It is not by its streams of fire alone that Etna ravages the
+valleys and plains at its base.  It sometimes also deluges them
+with great floods of water.  On the 2d of March, 1755, two streams
+of lava, issuing from the highest crater, were at once precipitated
+on an enormous mass of very deep snow, which then clothed the
+summit.  These fiery currents ran through the snow to a distance of
+three miles, melting it as they flowed.  The consequence was, that
+a tremendous torrent of water rushed down the sides of the
+mountain, carrying with it vast quantities of sand, volcanic
+cinders and blocks of lava, with which it overspread the flanks of
+the mountain and the plains beneath, which it devastated in its
+course.
+
+The volume of water was estimated at 16,000,000 cubic feet, it
+forming a channel two miles broad and in some places thirty-four
+feet deep, and flowing at the rate of two-thirds of a mile in a
+minute.  All the winter's snow on the mountain could not have
+yielded such a flood, and Lyell considered that it melted older
+layers of ice which had been preserved under a covering of volcanic
+dust.
+
+
+ETNA IN 1819
+
+
+Another great eruption took place in 1819, which presented some
+peculiarities.  Near the point whence the highest stream of lava
+issued in 1811, there were opened three large mouths, which, with
+loud explosions, threw up hot cinders and sand, illuminated by a
+strong glare from beneath.  Shortly afterwards there was opened, a
+little lower down, another mouth, from which a similar eruption
+took place; and still farther down there soon appeared a fifth,
+whence there flowed a torrent of lava which rapidly spread itself
+over the Val del Bove.  During the first forty-eight hours it
+flowed nearly four miles, when it received a great accession.  The
+three original mouths became united into one large crater, from
+which, as well as from the other two mouths below, there poured
+forth a vastly augmented torrent of lava, which rushed with great
+impetuosity down the same valley.
+
+During its progress over this gentle slope, it acquired the usual
+crust of hardened slag.  It directed its course towards that point
+at which Val del Bove opens into the narrow ravine beneath it--
+there being between the two a deep and almost perpendicular
+precipice.  Arrived at this point, the lava-torrent leaped over the
+precipice in a vast cascade, and with a thundering noise, arising
+chiefly from the crashing and breaking up of the solid crust, which
+was in a great measure pounded to atoms by the fall; it throwing up
+such vast clouds of dust as to awaken an alarm that a fresh
+eruption had begun at this place, which is within the wooded
+region.
+
+A very violent eruption, which lasted more than nine months,
+commenced on the 21st of August, 1852.  It was first witnessed by a
+party of English tourists, who were ascending the mountain from
+Nicolosi in order to see the sunrise from the summit.  As they
+approached the Casa Inglesi the crater commenced to give forth
+ashes and flames of fire.  In a narrow defile they were met by a
+violent hurricane, which overthrew both the mules and their riders,
+and urged them toward the precipices of the Val del Bove.  They
+sheltered themselves beneath some masses of lava, when suddenly an
+earthquake shook the mountain, and their mules in terror fled away.
+As day approached they returned on foot to Nicolosi, fortunately
+without having sustained injury.  In the course of the night many
+bocche del fuoco (small lava vents) opened in that part of the Val
+del Bove called the Bazo di Trifoglietto, a great fissure opened at
+the base of the Giannicola Grande, and a crater was thrown up from
+which for seventeen days showers of sand and scoriae were ejected.
+
+
+EFFECT OF THE ERUPTION
+
+
+During the next day a quantity of lava flowed down the Val del
+Bove, branching off so that one stream advanced to the foot of
+Monte Finocchio, and the other to Monte Calanna.  Afterwards it
+flowed towards Zaffarana, and devastated a large tract of wooded
+region.  Four days later a second crater was formed near the first,
+from which lava was emitted, together with sand and scoriae, which
+caused cones to arise around the craters.  The lava moved but
+slowly, and towards the end of August it came to a stand, only a
+quarter of a mile from Zaffarana.
+
+On the second of September, Gemellaro ascended Monte Finocchio in
+the Val del Bove in order to witness the outburst.  He states that
+the hill was violently agitated, like a ship at sea.  The surface
+of the Val del Bove appeared like a molten lake; scoriae were
+thrown up from the craters to a great height, and loud explosions
+were heard at frequent intervals.  The eruption continued to
+increase in violence.  On October 6 two new mouths opened in the
+Val del Bove, emitting lava which flowed towards the valley of
+Calanna, and fell over the Salto della Giumenta, a precipice nearly
+200 feet deep.  The noise which it produced was like that of a
+clash of metallic masses.  The eruption continued with abated
+violence during the early months of 1853, and it did not finally
+cease till May 27.  The entire mass of lava ejected is estimated to
+have been equal to an area six miles long by two miles broad, with
+an average depth of about twelve feet.
+
+This eruption was one of the grandest of all the known eruptions of
+Etna.  During its outflow more than 2,000,000,000 cubic feet of
+molten lava was spread out over a space of three square miles.
+There have been several eruptions since its date, but none of
+marked prominence, though the mountain is rarely quiescent for any
+lengthened period.
+
+
+THE LIPARI VOLCANOES
+
+
+South-eastward of Ischia, between Calabria and Sicily, the Lipari
+Islands arrest attention for the volcanic phenomena they present.
+On one of these is Mount Vulcano, or Volcano, from which all this
+class of mountains is named.  At present the best known of the
+Lipari volcanoes is Stromboli, which consists of a single mountain,
+having a very obtuse conical form.  It has on one side of it
+several small craters, of which only one is at present in a state
+of activity.
+
+The total height of the mountain is about 2000 feet, and the
+principal crater is situated at about two-thirds of the height.
+Stromboli is one of the most active volcanoes in the world.  It is
+mentioned as being in a state of activity by several writers before
+the Christian era, and the commencement of its operations extends
+into the past beyond the limits of tradition.  Since history began
+its action has never wholly ceased, although it may have varied in
+intensity from time to time.
+
+It has been observed that the violence of its eruptive force has a
+certain dependence on the weather--being always most intense when
+the barometer is lowest.  From the position of the crater, it is
+possible to ascend the mountain and look down upon it from above.
+Even when viewed in this manner, it presents a very striking
+appearance.  While there is an uninterrupted continuance of small
+explosions, there is a frequent succession of more violent
+eruptions, at intervals varying in length from seven to fifteen
+minutes.
+
+
+HOFFMAN AT STROMBOLI
+
+
+Several eminent observers have approached quite close to the
+crater, and examined it narrowly.  One of these was M. Hoffman, who
+visited it in 1828.
+
+This eminent geologist, while having his legs held by his
+companions, stretched his head over the precipice, and, looking
+right down into the mouth of one of the vents of the crater
+immediately under him, watched the play of liquid lava within it.
+Its surface resembled molten silver, and was constantly rising and
+falling at regular intervals.  A bubble of white vapor rose and
+escaped, with a decrepitating noise, at each ascent of the lava--
+tossing up red-hot fragments of scoria, which continued dancing up
+and down with a sort of rhythmic play upon the surface.  At
+intervals of fifteen minutes or so, there was a pause in these
+movements.  Then followed a loud report, while the ground trembled,
+and there rose to the surface of the lava an immense bubble of
+vapor.  This, bursting with a crackling noise, threw out to the
+height of about 1200 feet large quantities of red-hot stones and
+scoriae, which, describing parabolic curves, fell in a fiery,
+shower all around.  After another brief repose, the more moderate
+action was resumed as before.
+
+Lipari, a neighboring volcano, was formerly more active than
+Stromboli, though for centuries past it has been in a state of
+complete quiescence.  The Island of Volcano lies south of Lipari.
+Its crater was active before the Christian era, and still emits
+sulphurous and other vapors.  At present its main office is to
+serve as a sulphur mine.  Thus the peak which gives title to all
+fire-breathing mountains has become a servant to man.  So are the
+mighty fallen!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+Skaptar Jokull and Hecla, the Great Icelandic Volcanoes.
+
+
+The far-northern island of Iceland, on the verge of the frozen
+Arctic realm, is one of the most volcanic countries in the world,
+whether we regard the number of volcanoes concentrated in so small
+a space, or the extraordinary violence of their eruptions.  Of
+volcanic mountains there are no less than twenty which have been
+active during historical times.  Skaptar in the north, and Hecla in
+the south, being much the best known.  In all, twenty-three
+eruptions are on record.
+
+Iceland's volcanoes rival Mount Aetna in height and magnitude,
+their action has been more continuous and intense, and the range of
+volcanic products is far greater than in Sicily.  The latter
+island, indeed, is not one-tenth of volcanic origin, while the
+whole of Iceland is due to the work of subterranean forces.  It is
+entirely made up of volcanic rocks, and has seemingly been built up
+during the ages from the depths of the seas.  It is reported,
+indeed, that a new island, the work of volcanic forces, appeared
+opposite Mount Hecla in 1563; but this statement is open to doubt.
+
+
+VOLCANOES IN ICELAND
+
+
+The eruptions of the volcanoes in Iceland have been amongst the
+most terrible of those carefully recorded.  The cold climate of the
+island and the height of the mountains produce vast quantities of
+snow and ice, which cover the volcanoes and fill up the cracks and
+valleys in their sides.  When, therefore, an eruption commences,
+the intense heat of the boiling lava, and of the steam which rushes
+forth from the crater, makes the whole mountain hot, and vast
+masses of ice, great fields of snow, and deluges of water roll down
+the hill-sides into the plains.  The lava pours from the top and
+from cracks in the side of the mountain, or is ejected hundreds of
+feet, to fall amongst the ice and snow; and the great masses of
+red-hot stone cast forth, accompanied by cinders and fine ashes,
+splash into the roaring torrent, which tears up rocks in its course
+and devastates the surrounding country for miles.
+
+
+DREADFUL FLOODS
+
+
+An eruption of Kotlugja, in 1860, was accompanied by dreadful
+floods.  It began with a number of earthquakes, which shook the
+surrounding country.  Then a dark columnar cloud of vapor was seen
+to rise by day from the mountain, and by night balls of fire
+(volcanic bombs) and red-hot cinders to the height of 24,000 feet
+(nearly five miles), which were seen at a distance of 180 miles.
+Deluges of water rushed from the heights, bearing along whole
+fields of ice and rocky fragments of every size, some vomited from
+the volcano, but in great part torn from the flanks of the mountain
+itself and carried to the sea, there to add considerably to the
+coastline after devastating the intervening country.  The fountain
+of volcanic bombs consisted of masses of lava, containing gases
+which exploded and produced a loud sound, which was said to have
+been heard at a distance of 100 miles.  The size of the bombs, and
+the height to which they must have reached, were very great.  But
+the most remarkable of the historical eruptions in Iceland were
+those of Skaptar Jokull in 1783, and of Hecla in 1845.  Of these an
+extended description is worthy of being given.
+
+Of these two memorable eruptions, that of Skaptar Jokull began on
+the 11th of June, 1783.  It was preceded by a long series of
+earthquakes, which had become exceedingly violent immediately
+before the eruption.  On the 8th, volcanic vapors were emitted from
+the summit of the mountain, and on the 11th immense torrents of
+lava began to be poured forth from numerous mouths.  These torrents
+united to form a large stream, which, flowing down into the river
+Skapta, not only dried it up, but completely filled the vast gorge
+through which the river had held its course.  This gorge, 200 feet
+in breadth, and from 400 to 600 feet in depth, the lava filled so
+entirely as to overflow to a considerable extent the fields on
+either side.  On issuing from this ravine, the lava flowed into a
+deep lake which lay in the course of the river.  Here it was
+arrested for a while; but it ultimately filled the bed of the lake
+altogether--either drying up its waters, or chasing them before it
+into the lower part of the river's course.  Still forced onward by
+the accumulation of molten lava from behind, the stream resumed its
+advance, till it reached some ancient volcanic rocks which were
+full of caverns.  Into these it entered, and where it could not eat
+its way by melting the old rock, it forced a passage by shivering
+the solid mass and throwing its broken fragments into the air to a
+height of 150 feet.
+
+
+A TORRENT OF LAVA
+
+
+On the 18th of June there opened above the first mouth a second of
+large dimensions, whence poured another immense torrent of lava,
+which flowed with great rapidity over the solidified surface of the
+first stream, and ultimately combined with it to form a more
+formidable main current.  When this fresh stream reached the fiery
+lake, which had filled the lower portion of the valley of the
+Skapta, a portion of it was forced up the channel of that river
+towards the foot of the hill whence it takes its rise.  After
+pursuing its course for several days, the main body of this stream
+reached the edge of a great waterfall called Stapafoss, which
+plunged into a deep abyss.  Displacing the water, the lava here
+leaped over the precipice, and formed a great cataract of fire.
+After this, it filled the channel of the river, though extending
+itself in breadth far beyond it, and followed it until it reached
+the sea.
+
+
+ENORMOUS QUANTITY OF LAVA
+
+
+The 3rd of August brought fresh accessions to the flood of lava
+still pouring from the mountain.  There being no room in the
+channel, now filled by the former lurid stream, which had pursued a
+northwesterly course, the fresh lava was forced to take a new
+direction towards the southeast, where it entered the bed of
+another river with a barbaric name.  Here it pursued a course
+similar to that which flowed through the channel of the Skapta,
+filling up the deep gorges, and then spreading itself out into
+great fiery lakes over the plains.
+
+The eruptions of lava from the mountain continued, with some short
+intervals, for two years, and so enormous was the quantity poured
+forth during this period that, according to a careful estimate
+which has been made, the whole together would form a mass equal to
+that of Mont Blanc.  Of the two streams, the greater was fifty, the
+less forty, miles in length.  The Skapta branch attained on the
+plains a breadth varying from twelve to fifteen miles--that of the
+other was only about half as much.  Each of the currents had an
+average depth of 100 feet, but in the deep gorges it was no less
+than 600 feet.  Even as late as 1794 vapors continued to rise from
+these great streams, and the water contained in the numerous
+fissures formed in their crust was hot.
+
+The devastation directly wrought by the lava currents themselves
+was not the whole of the evils they brought upon unfortunate
+Iceland and its inhabitants.  Partly owing to the sudden melting of
+the snows and glaciers of the mountain, partly owing to the
+stoppage of the river courses, immense floods of water deluged the
+country in the neighborhood, destroying many villages and a large
+amount of agricultural and other property.  Twenty villages were
+overwhelmed by the lava currents, while the ashes thrown out during
+the eruption covered the whole island and the surface of the sea
+for miles around its shores.  On several occasions the ashes were
+drifted by the winds over considerable parts of the European
+continent, obscuring the sun and giving the sky a gray and gloomy
+aspect.  In certain respects they reproduced the phenomena of the
+explosion of Mount Krakatoa, which, singularly, occurred just a
+century later, in 1883.  The strange red sunset phenomena of the
+latter were reproduced by this Icelandic event of the eighteenth
+century.
+
+Out of the 50,000 persons who then inhabited Iceland, 9,336
+perished, together with 11,460 head of cattle, 190,480 sheep and
+28,000 horses.  This dreadful destruction of life was caused partly
+by the direct action of the lava currents, partly by the noxious
+vapors they emitted, partly by the floods of water, partly by the
+destruction of the herbage by the falling ashes, and lastly in
+consequence of the desertion of the coasts by the fish, which
+formed a large portion of the food of the people.
+
+
+ERUPTION OF MOUNT HECLA
+
+
+After this frightful eruption, no serious volcanic disturbance took
+place in Iceland until 1845, when Mount Hecla again became
+disastrously active.  Mount Hecla has been the most frequent in its
+eruptions of any of the Icelandic volcanoes.  Previous to 1845
+there had been twenty-two recorded eruptions of this mountain,
+since the discovery of Iceland in the ninth century; while from all
+the other volcanoes in the island there had been only twenty during
+the same period.  Hecla has more than once remained in activity for
+six years at a time--a circumstance that has rendered it the best
+known of the volcanoes of this region.
+
+
+LATER OUTBREAKS
+
+
+After enjoying a long rest of seventy-nine years, this volcano
+burst again into violent activity in the beginning of September,
+1845.  The first inkling of this eruption was conveyed to the
+British Islands by a fall of volcanic ashes in the Orkneys, which
+occurred on the night of September 2nd during a violent storm.
+This palpable hint was soon confirmed by direct intelligence from
+Copenhagen.  On the 1st of September a severe earthquake, followed
+the same night by fearful subterranean noises, alarmed the
+inhabitants and gave warning of what was to come.  About noon the
+next day, with a dreadful crash, there opened in the sides of the
+volcano two new mouths, whence two great streams of glowing lava
+poured forth.  They fortunately flowed down the northern and
+northwestern sides of the mountain, where the low grounds are mere
+barren heaths, affording a scanty pasture for a few sheep.  These
+were driven before the fiery stream, but several of them were burnt
+before they could escape.  The whole mountain was enveloped in
+clouds of volcanic ashes and vapors.  The rivers near the lava
+currents became so hot as to kill the fish, and to be impassable
+even on horseback.
+
+About a fortnight later there was a fresh eruption, of greater
+violence, which lasted twenty-two hours, and was accompanied by
+detonations so loud as to be heard over the whole island.  Two new
+craters were formed, one on the southern, the other on the eastern
+slope of the cone.  The lava issuing from these craters flowed to a
+distance of more than twenty-two miles.  At about two miles from
+its source the fiery stream was a mile wide, and from 40 to 50 feet
+deep.  It destroyed a large extent of fine pasture and many cattle.
+Nearly a month later, on the 15th of October, a fresh flood of lava
+burst from the southern crater, and soon heaped up a mass at the
+foot of the mountain from 40 to 60 feet in height, three great
+columns of vapor, dust and ashes rising at the same time from the
+three new craters of the volcano.  The mountain continued in a
+state of greater or less activity during most of the next year; and
+even as late as the month of October, 1846, after a brief pause, it
+began again with renewed vehemence.  The volumes of dust, ashes and
+vapor, thrown up from the craters, and brightly illuminated by the
+glowing lava beneath, assumed the appearance of flames, and
+ascended to an immense height.
+
+
+ELECTRIC PHENOMENA
+
+
+Among the stones tossed out of the craters was one large mass of
+pumice weighing nearly half a ton, which was carried to a distance
+of between four and five miles.  The rivers were flooded by the
+melting of ice and snow which had accumulated on the mountain.  The
+greatest mischief wrought by these successive eruptions was the
+destruction of the pasturages, which were for the most part covered
+with volcanic ashes.  Even where left exposed, the herbage acquired
+a poisonous taint which proved fatal to the cattle, inducing among
+them a peculiar murrain.  Fortunately, owing to the nature of the
+district through which the lava passed, there was on this occasion
+no loss of human life.
+
+The Icelandic volcanoes are remarkable for the electric phenomena
+which they produce in the atmosphere.  Violent thunder-storms, with
+showers of rain and hail, are frequent accompaniments of volcanic
+eruptions everywhere; but owing to the coldness and dryness of the
+air into which the vapors from the Icelandic volcanoes ascend,
+their condensation is so sudden and violent that great quantities
+of electricity are developed.  Thunder-storms accompanied by the
+most vivid lightnings are the result.  Humboldt mentions in his
+"Cosmos" that, during an eruption of Kotlugja, one of the southern
+Icelandic volcanoes, the lightning from the cloud of volcanic vapor
+killed eleven horses and two men (Cosmos i. 223).  Great displays
+of the aurora borealis usually accompany the volcanic eruptions of
+this island--doubtless resulting from the quantity of electricity
+imparted to the higher atmosphere by the condensation of the
+ascending vapors.  On the 18th of August, 1783, while the great
+eruption of Skaptar Jokull was in progress, an immense fire-ball
+passed over England and the European continent as far as Rome.
+This ball which was estimated to have had a diameter exceeding half
+a mile, is supposed to have been of electrical origin, and due to
+the high state of electric tension in the atmosphere over Iceland
+at that time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+Volcanoes of the Philippines and Other Pacific Islands.
+
+
+We cannot do better than open this chapter with an account of the
+work of volcanoes in the mountain-girdled East Indian island of
+Java.  This large and fertile tropical island has a large native
+population, and many European settlers are employed in cultivating
+spices, coffee and woods.  The island is rather more than 600 miles
+long, and it is not 150 miles broad in any part; and this narrow
+shape is produced by a chain of volcanoes which runs along it.
+There is scarcely any other region in the world where volcanoes are
+so numerous, even in the East, where the volcano is a very common
+product of nature.  Some of the volcanoes of Java are constantly in
+eruption, while others are inactive.
+
+One of their number, Galung Gung, was previous to 1822 covered from
+top to bottom with a dense forest; around it were populous
+villages.  The mountain was high; there was a slight hollow on its
+top--a basin-like valley, carpeted with the softest sward; brooks
+rippled down the hillside through the forests, and, joining their
+silvery streams, flowed on through beautiful valleys into the
+distant sea.  In the month of July, 1822, there were signs of an
+approaching disturbance; this tranquil peacefulness was at an end;
+one of the rivers became muddy, and its waters grew hot.
+
+In October, without any warning, a most terrific eruption occurred.
+A loud explosion was heard; the earth shook, and immense columns of
+hot water, boiling mud mixed with burning brimstone, ashes and
+stones, were hurled upwards from the mountain top like a
+waterspout, and with such wonderful force that large quantities
+fell at a distance of forty miles.  Every valley near the mountain
+became filled with burning torrents; the rivers, swollen with hot
+water and mud, overflowed their banks, and swept away the escaping
+villagers; and the bodies of cattle, wild beasts, and birds were
+carried down the flooded stream.
+
+
+ERUPTION OF GALUNG GUNG
+
+
+A space of twenty-four miles between the mountain and a river forty
+miles distant was covered to such a depth with blue mud, that
+people were buried in their houses, and not a trace of the numerous
+villages and plantations was visible.  The boiling mud and cinders
+were cast forth with such violence from the crater, that while many
+distant villages were utterly destroyed and buried, others much
+nearer the volcano were scarcely injured; and all this was done in
+five short hours.
+
+Four days afterwards a second eruption occurred more violent than
+the first, and hot water and mud were cast forth with masses of
+slag like the rock called basalt some of which fell seven miles
+off.  A violent earthquake shook the whole district, and the top of
+the mountain fell in, and so did one of its sides, leaving a gaping
+chasm.  Hills appeared where there had been level land before, and
+the rivers changed their courses, drowning in one night 2,000
+people.  At some distance from the mountain a river runs through a
+large town, and the first intimation the inhabitants had of all
+this horrible destruction was the news that the bodies of men and
+the carcases of stags, rhinoceroses, tigers, and other animals,
+were rushing along to the sea.  No less than 114 villages were
+destroyed, and above 4,000 persons were killed by this terrible
+catastrophe.
+
+Fifty years before this eruption, Mount Papandayang, one of the
+highest burning mountains of Java, was constantly throwing out
+steam and smoke, but as no harm was done, the natives continued to
+live on its sides.  Suddenly this enormous mountain fell in, and
+left a gap fifteen miles long and six broad.  Forty villages were
+destroyed, some being carried down and others overwhelmed by mud
+and burning lava.  No less than 2,957 people perished, with vast
+numbers of cattle; moreover, most of the coffee plantations in the
+neighboring districts were destroyed.
+
+Even more terrible was the eruption of Mount Salek, another of the
+volcanoes of Java.  The burning of the mountain was seen 100 miles
+away, while the thunders of its convulsions and the tremblings of
+the earth reached the same distance.  Seven hills, at whose base
+ran a river--crowded with dead buffaloes, deer, apes, tigers, and
+crocodiles--slipped down and became a level plain.  River-courses
+were changed, forests were burnt up, and the whole face of the
+country was completely altered.
+
+Later volcanic eruptions in Java include that of 1843, when Mount
+Guntur flung out sand and ashes estimated at the vast total of
+thirty million tons, and those of 1849 and 1872 when Mount Merapi,
+a very active volcano, covered a great extent of country with
+stones and ashes, and ruined the coffee plantations of the
+neighboring districts.
+
+We have said nothing concerning the most terrible explosion of all,
+that of the volcanic island of Krakatoa, off the Javan coast.  This
+event was so phenomenal as to deserve a chapter of its own, for
+which we reserve it.
+
+The United States, as one result of its recent acquisition of
+island dominions, has added largely to its wealth in volcanic
+mountains.  The famous Hawaiian craters, far the greatest in the
+world, now belong to our national estate, and the Philippine
+Islands contain various others, of less importance, yet some of
+which have proved very destructive.  A description of those of the
+Island of Luzon, which are the most active in the archipelago, is
+here sub-joined.
+
+
+THE LUZON VOLCANOES.
+
+
+Volcanoes have played an important part in the formation of the
+Philippine Islands and have left traces of their former activity in
+all directions.  Most of them, however, have long been dead and
+silent, only a few of the once numerous group being now active.  Of
+these there are three of importance in the southern region of
+Luzon--Taal, Bulusan and Mayon or Albay.
+
+The last named of these is the largest and most active of the
+existing volcanoes.  In form it is of marvellous grace and beauty,
+forming a perfect cone, about fifty miles in circuit at base and
+rising to a height of 8,900 feet.  It is one of the most prominent
+landmarks to navigators in the island.  From its crater streams
+upward a constant smoke, accompanied at times by flame, while from
+its depths issue subterranean sounds, often heard at a distance of
+many leagues.  The whole surrounding country is marked by evidences
+of old eruptions.
+
+This mountain, in 1767, sent up a cone of flame of forty feet in
+diameter at base, for ten days, and for two months a wide stream of
+lava poured from its crater.  A month later there gushed forth
+great floods of water, which filled the rivers to overflow, doing
+widespread damage to the neighboring plantations.  But its greatest
+and most destructive eruption took place in 1812, the year of the
+great eruption of the St. Vincent volcano.  On this fatal occasion
+several towns were destroyed and no less than 12,000 people lost
+their lives.  The debris flung forth from the crater were so
+abundant that deposits deep enough to bury the tallest trees were
+formed near the mountain.  In 1867 another disastrous explosion
+took place, and still another in 1888.  A disaster different in
+kind and cause occurred in 1876, when a terrible tropical storm
+burst upon the mountain.  The floods of rain swept from its sides
+the loose volcanic material, and brought destruction to the
+neighboring country, more than six thousand houses being ruined by
+the rushing flood.
+
+
+BULUSAN AND TAAL
+
+
+Bulusan, a volcano on the southern extremity of the island,
+resembles Vesuvius in shape.  For many years it remained dormant,
+but in 1852 smoke began to issue from its crater.  In some respects
+the most interesting of these three volcanoes is that of Taal,
+which lies almost due south of Manila and about forty-five miles
+distant, on a small island in the middle of a large lake, known as
+Bombom or Bongbong.  A remarkable feature of this volcanic mountain
+is that it is probably the lowest in the world, its height being
+only 850 feet above sea level.  There are doubtful traditions that
+Lake Bombom, a hundred square miles in extent, was formed by a
+terrible eruption in 1700, by which a lofty mountain 8000 or 9000
+feet high, was destroyed.  The vast deposits of porous tufa in the
+surrounding country are certainly evidences of former great
+eruptions from Mount Taal.
+
+The crater of this volcano is an immense, cup-shaped depression, a
+mile or more in diameter and about 800 feet deep.  When recently
+visited by Professor Worcester, during his travels in these
+islands, he found it to contain three boiling lakelets of
+strangely-colored water, one being of a dirty brown hue, a second
+intensely yellow in tint, and the third of a brilliant emerald
+green.  The mountain still steams and fumes, as if too actively at
+work below to be at rest above.  In past times it has shown the
+forces at play in its depths by breaking at times into frightful
+activity.  Of the various explosions on record, the three most
+violent were those of 1716, 1749, and 1754.  In the last-named year
+the earth for miles round quaked with the convulsive throes of the
+deeply disturbed mountain, and vast quantities of volcanic dust
+were hurled high into the air, sufficient to make it dark at midday
+for many leagues around.  The roofs of distant Manila were covered
+with volcanic dust and ashes.  Molten lava also poured from the
+crater and flowed into the lake, which boiled with the intense
+heat, while great showers of stones and ashes fell into its waters.
+
+
+VOLCANOES IN THE SOUTHERN ISLANDS
+
+
+Extinct volcanoes are numerous in Luzon, and there are smoking
+cones in the north, and also in the Babuyanes Islands still farther
+north.  Volcanoes also exist in several of the other islands.  On
+Negros is the active peak of Malaspina, and on Camiguin, an island
+about ninety miles to the southeast, a new volcano broke out in
+1876.  The large island of Mindanao has three volcanoes, of which
+Cottabato was in eruption in 1856 and is still active at intervals.
+Apo, the largest of the three, estimated to be 10,312 feet high,
+has three summits, within which lies the great crater, now extinct
+and filled with water.
+
+In evidence of former volcanic activity are the abundant deposits
+of sulphur on the island of Leyte, the hot springs in various
+localities, and the earthquakes which occasionally bring death and
+destruction.  Of the many of these on record, the most destructive
+was in 1863, when 400 people were killed and 2,000 injured, while
+many buildings were wrecked.  Another in 1880 wrought great
+destruction in Manila and elsewhere, though without loss of life.
+An earthquake in Mindanao in 1675 opened a passage to the sea, and
+a vast plain emerged.  These convulsions of the earth affect the
+form and elevation of buildings, which are rarely more than two
+stories high and lightly built, while translucent sea-shells
+replace glass in their windows.
+
+While Java is the most prolific in volcanoes of the islands of the
+Malayan Archipelago, other islands of the group possess active
+cones, including Sumatra, Bali, Amboyna, Banda and others.  In
+Sanguir, an island north of Celebes, is a volcanic mountain from
+which there was a destructive eruption in 1856.  The country was
+devastated with lava, stones and volcanic ashes, ruining a wide
+district and killing nearly 3,000 of the inhabitants.  Mount
+Madrian in one of the Spice Islands, was rent in twain by a fierce
+eruption in 1646, and since then has remained two distinct
+mountains.  It became active again in 1862, after two centuries of
+repose, and caused great loss of life and property.  Sorea, a small
+island of the same group, forming but a single volcanic mountain,
+had an eruption in 1693, the cone crumbling gradually till a vast
+crater was formed, filled with liquid lava and occupying nearly
+half the island.  This lake of fire increased in size by the same
+process till in the end it took possession of the island and forced
+all the inhabitants to flee to more hospitable shores.
+
+
+THE GREAT ERUPTION OF TOMBORO
+
+
+But of the East Indian Islands Sumbawa, lying east of Java,
+contains the most formidable volcano--one indeed scarcely without a
+rival in the world.  This is named Tomboro.  Of its various
+eruptions the most furious on record was that of 1815.  This, as we
+are told by Sir Stamford Raffles, far exceeded in force and
+duration any of the known outbreaks of Etna or Vesuvius.  The
+ground trembled and the echoes of its roar were heard through an
+area of 1,000 miles around the volcano, and to a distance of 300
+miles its effects were astounding.
+
+In Java, 300 miles away, ashes filled the air so thickly that the
+solar rays could not penetrate them, and fell to the depth of
+several inches.  The detonations were so similar to the reports of
+artillery as to be mistaken for them.  The Rajah of Sang'ir, who
+was an eye-witness of the eruption, thus described it to Sir
+Stamford:
+
+"About 7 P. M. on the 10th of April, three distinct columns of
+flame burst forth near the top of the Tomboro mountain (all of them
+apparently within the verge of the crater), and, after ascending
+separately to a very great height, their tops united in the air in
+a troubled, confused manner.  In short time the whole mountain next
+Sang'ir appeared like a body of liquid fire, extending itself in
+every direction.  The fire and columns of flame continued to rage
+with unabated fury, until the darkness caused by the quantity of
+falling matter obscured them, at about 8 P. M.  Stones at this time
+fell very thick at Sang'ir--some of them as large as two fists, but
+generally not larger than walnuts.  Between 9 and 10 P. M. ashes
+began to fall, and soon after a violent whirlwind ensued, which
+blew down nearly every house in the village of Sang'ir--carrying
+the roofs and light parts away with it.  In the port of Sang'ir,
+adjoining Tomboro, its effects were much more violent--tearing up
+by the roots the largest trees, and carrying them into the air,
+together with men, horses, cattle, and whatever else came within
+its influence.  This will account for the immense number of
+floating trees seen at sea.  The sea rose nearly twelve feet higher
+than it had ever been known to do before, and completely spoiled
+the only spots of rice-land in Sang'ir--sweeping away houses and
+everything within its reach.  The whirlwind lasted about an hour.
+No explosions were heard till the whirlwind had ceased, at about 11
+P.M.  From midnight till the evening of the 11th, they continued
+without intermission.  After that time their violence moderated,
+and they were heard only at intervals; but the explosions did not
+cease entirely until the 15th of July.  Of all the villages of
+Tomboro, Tempo, containing about forty inhabitants, is the only one
+remaining.  In Pekate no vestige of a house is left; twenty-six of
+the people, who were at Sumbawa at the time, are the whole of the
+population who have escaped.  From the most particular inquiries I
+have been able to make, there were certainly no fewer than 12,000
+individuals in Tomboro and Pekate at the time of the eruption, of
+whom only five or six survive.  The trees and herbage of every
+description, along the whole of the north and west sides of the
+peninsula, have been completely destroyed, with the exception of
+those on a high point of land, near the spot where the village of
+Tomboro stood."
+
+Tomboro village was not only invaded by the sea on this occasion,
+but its site permanently subsided; so that there is now eighteen
+feet of water where there was formerly dry land.
+
+
+THE VOLCANOES OF JAPAN
+
+
+The Japanese archipelago, as stated in an earlier chapter, is
+abundantly supplied with volcanoes, a number of them being active.
+Of these the best known to travelers is Asamayama, a mountain 8,500
+feet high, of which there are several recorded eruptions.  The
+first of these was in 1650; after which the volcano remained feebly
+active till 1783, when it broke out in a very severe eruption.  In
+1870 there was another of some severity, accompanied by violent
+shocks of earthquake felt at Yokohama.  The crater is very deep,
+with irregular rocky walls of a sulphurous character.
+
+Far the most famous of all the Japanese mountains, however, is that
+named Fuji-san, but commonly termed in English Fujiyama or
+Fusiyama.  It is in the vicinity of the capital, and is the most
+prominent object in the landscape for many miles around.  The apex
+is shaped somewhat like an eight-petaled lotus flower, and offers
+to view from different directions from three to five peaks.
+
+Though now apparently extinct, it was formerly an active volcano,
+and is credited in history with several very disastrous eruptions.
+The last of these was in 1707, at which time the whole summit burst
+into flames.  Rocks were split and shattered by the heat, and
+stones fell to the depth of several inches in Yeddo (now Tokyo),
+sixty miles away.  At present there are in its crater, which has a
+depth of 700 or 800 feet, neither sulphurous exhalations nor steam.
+According to Japanese tradition this great peak was upheaved in a
+single night from the bottom of the sea, more than twenty-one
+hundred years ago.
+
+Nothing can be more majestic than this volcano, extinct though it
+be, rising in an immense cone from the plain to the height of over
+twelve thousand feet, truncated at the top, and with its peak
+almost always snow-covered.  Its ascent is not difficult to an
+expert climber, and has frequently been made.  From its summit is
+unfolded a panorama beyond the power of words to describe, and
+probably the most remarkable on the globe.  Mountains, valleys,
+lakes, forests and the villages of thirteen counties may be seen.
+As we gaze upon its beautifully shaped and lofty mass, visible even
+from Yokohama and a hundred miles at sea, one does not wonder that
+it should be regarded as a holy mountain, and that it should form a
+conspicuous object in every Japanese work of art.  It is to the
+natives of Japan as Mont Blanc is to Europeans, the "monarch of
+mountains."
+
+In summer pilgrimages are made around the base of the summit
+elevation, and there are on the upward path a number of Buddhist
+temples and shrines, made of blocks of stone, for devotion, shelter
+and the storage of food for pilgrims.  Hakone Lake is three
+thousand feet above the sea, and probably lies in the crater of an
+extinct volcano.  Its waters are very deep; it is several miles
+long and wide, and is surrounded by high hills which abound in fine
+scenery, solfataras and mineral springs.
+
+
+HOT SPRINGS NEAR HAKONE LAKE
+
+
+At this place the mountain seems to be smouldering, as sulphur
+fumes and steam issue at many points, and the ground is covered
+with a friable white alkaline substance.  In many a hollow the
+water bubbles with clouds of vapor and sulphuretted hydrogen; here
+the soil is hot and evidently underlaid by active fires.  It is not
+safe to go very near, as the crust is thin and crumbling.  The
+water running down the hills has a refreshing sound and a tempting
+clearness, but the thirsty tongue at once detects it to be a very
+strong solution of alum.  The whole aspect of the place is
+infernal, and naturally suggests the name given its principal
+geyser, O-gigoko (Big Hell).
+
+Fujiyama is almost a perfect cone, with, as above said, a truncated
+top, in which is the crater.  It is, however, less steep than
+Mayon.  Its upper part is comparatively steep, even to thirty-five
+degrees, but below this portion the inclination gradually lessens,
+till its elegant outlines are lost in the plain from which it
+rises.  The curves of the sides depend partly on the nature, size
+and shape of the ejected material, the fine uniform pieces
+remaining on comparatively steep slopes, while the larger and
+rounder ones roll farther down, resting on the inclination that
+afterward becomes curved from the subsidence of the central mass.
+
+The most recent and one of the most destructive of volcanic
+eruptions recorded in Japan was that of Bandaisan or Baldaisan.
+For ages this mountain had been peaceful, and there was scarcely an
+indication of its volcanic character or of the terrific forces
+which lay dormant deep within its heart.  On its flanks lay some
+small deposits of scoriae, indications of far-past eruptions, and
+there were some hot springs at its base, while steam arose from a
+fissure.  Yet there was nothing to warn the people of the vicinity
+that deadly peril lay under their feet.
+
+
+BANDAISAN'S WORK OF TERROR
+
+
+This sense of security was fatally dissipated on a day in July,
+1888, when the mountain suddenly broke into eruption and flung
+1,600 million cubic yards of its summit material so high into the
+air that many of the falling fragments, in their fall, struck the
+ground with such velocity as to be buried far out of sight.  The
+steam and dust were driven to a height of 13,000 feet, where they
+spread into a canopy of much greater elevation, causing pitchy
+darkness beneath.  There were from fifteen to twenty violent
+explosions, and a great landslide devastated about thirty square
+miles and buried many villages in the Nagase Valley.
+
+Mr. Norman, a traveler who visited the spot shortly afterward, thus
+describes the scene of ruin.  After a journey through the forests
+which clothed the slopes of the volcanic mountain and prevented any
+distant view, the travelers at last found themselves "standing upon
+the ragged edge of what was left of the mountain of Bandaisan,
+after two-thirds of it, including, of course, the summit, had been
+literally blown away and spread over the face of the country.
+
+"The original cone of the mountain," he continues, "had been
+truncated at an acute angle to its axis.  From our very feet a
+precipitous mud slope falls away for half a mile or more till it
+reaches the level.  At our right, still below us, rises a mud wall
+a mile long, also sloping down to the level, and behind it is
+evidently the crater; but before us, for five miles in a straight
+line, and on each side nearly as far, is a sea of congealed mud,
+broken up into ripples and waves and great billows, and bearing
+upon its bosom a thousand huge boulders, weighing hundreds of tons
+apiece."
+
+On reaching the crater he found it to resemble a gigantic cauldron,
+fully a mile in width, and enclosed with precipitous walls of
+indurated mud.  From several orifices volumes of steam rose into
+the air, and when the vapor cleared away for a moment glimpses of a
+mass of boiling mud were obtained.  Before the eruption the
+mountain top had terminated in three peaks.  Of these the highest
+had an elevation of about 5,800 feet.  The peak destroyed was the
+middle one, which was rather smaller than the other two.
+
+"The explosion was caused by steam; there was neither fire nor lava
+of any kind.  It was, in fact, nothing more nor less than a
+gigantic boiler explosion.  The whole top and one side of Sho-
+Bandai-san had been blown into the air in a lateral direction, and
+the earth of the mountain was converted by the escaping steam, at
+the moment of the explosion, into boiling mud, part of which was
+projected into the air to fall at a long distance, and then take
+the form of an overflowing river, which rushed with vast rapidity
+and covered the country to a depth of from 20 to 150 feet.  Thirty
+square miles of country were thus devastated."
+
+In the devastated lowlands and buried villages below and on the
+slopes of the mountain many lives were lost.  From the survivors
+Mr. Norman gathered some information, enabling him to describe the
+main features of the catastrophe.  We append a brief outline of his
+narrative:
+
+
+MR. NORMAN'S NARRATIVE
+
+
+"At a few minutes past 8 o'clock in the morning a frightful noise
+was heard by the inhabitants of a village ten miles distant from
+the crater.  Some of them instinctively took to flight, but before
+they could run much more than a hundred yards the light of day was
+suddenly changed into a darkness more intense than that of
+midnight; a shower of blinding hot ashes and sand poured down upon
+them; the ground was shaken with earthquakes, and explosion
+followed explosion, the last being the most violent of all.  Many
+fugitives, as well as people in the houses, were overwhelmed by the
+deluge of mud, none of the fugitives, when overtaken by death,
+being more than two hundred yards from the village."  From the
+statements made by those fortunate enough to escape with their
+lives, and from a personal examination of the ground, Mr. Norman
+inferred that the mud must have been flung fully six miles through
+the air and then have poured in a torrent along the ground for four
+miles further.  All this was done in less than five minutes, so
+that "millions of tons of boiling mud were hurled over the country
+at the rate of two miles a minute."
+
+The velocity of the mud torrent may perhaps be overestimated, but
+in its awful suddenness this catastrophe was evidently one with few
+equals.  The cone destroyed may have been largely composed of
+rather fine ashes and scoriae, which was almost instantaneously
+converted into mud by the condensing steam and the boiling water
+ejected.  The quantity of water thus discharged must have been
+enormous.
+
+Of the remaining volcanic regions of the Pacific, the New Zealand
+islands present some of the most striking examples of activity.
+All the central parts, indeed, of the northern island of the group
+are of a highly volcanic character.  There is here a mountain named
+Tongariro, on whose snow-clad summit is a deep crater, from which
+volcanic vapors are seen to issue, and which exhibits other
+indications of having been in a state of greater activity at a not
+very remote period of time.  There is also, at no great distance
+from this mountain, a region containing numerous funnel-shaped
+chasms, emitting hot water, or steam, or sulphurous vapors, or
+boiling mud.  The earthquakes in New Zealand had probably their
+origin in this volcanic focus.
+
+
+THE NEW ZEALAND VOLCANOES
+
+
+Tongariro has a height of about 6,500 feet, while Egmont, 8,270
+feet in height, is a perfect cone with a perpetual cap of snow.
+There are many other volcanic mountains, and also great numbers of
+mud volcanoes, hot springs and geysers.  It is for the latter that
+the island is best known to geologists.  Their waters are at or
+near the boiling point and contain silica in abundance.
+
+At a place called Rotomahana, in the vicinity of Mount Tarawera,
+there was formerly a lake of about one hundred and twenty acres in
+area, which was in its way one of the most remarkable bodies of
+water upon the earth.  Formerly, we say, for this lake no longer
+exists, it having been destroyed by the very forces to which it
+owed its fame.  Its waters were maintained nearly at the boiling
+point by the continual accession of boiling water from numerous
+springs.  The most abundant of those sources was situated at the
+height of about 100 feet above the level of the lake.  It kept
+continually filled an oval basin about 250 feet in circumference--
+the margins of which were fringed all round with beautiful pure
+white stalactites, formed by deposits of silica, with which the hot
+water was strongly impregnated.  At various stages below the
+principal spring were several others, that contributed to feed the
+lake at the bottom, in the centre of which was a small island.
+Minute bubbles continually escaped from the surface of the water
+with a hissing sound, and the sand all round the lake was at a high
+temperature.  If a stick was thrust into it, very hot vapors would
+ascend from the hole.  Not far from this lake were several small
+basins filled with tepid water, which was very clear, and of a blue
+color.
+
+The conditions here were of a kind with those to which are due the
+great geysers of Iceland and the Yellowstone Park, but different in
+the fact that instead of being intermittent and throwing up jets at
+intervals, the springs allowed the water to flow from them in a
+continuous stream.
+
+
+THE PINK AND WHITE TERRACES
+
+
+The silicious incrustations left by the overflow from the large
+pool had made a series of terraces, two to six feet high, with the
+appearance of being hewn from white or pink marble; each of the
+basins containing a similar azure water.  These terraces covered an
+area of about three acres, and looked like a series of cataracts
+changed into stone, each edge being fringed with a festoon of
+delicate stalactites.  The water contained about eighty-five per
+cent. of silica, with one or two per cent of iron alumina, and a
+little alkali.
+
+There were no more beautiful products of nature upon the earth than
+those "pink and white terraces," as they were called.  The hot
+springs of the Yellowstone have produced formations resembling
+them, but not their equal in fairy-like charm.  One series of these
+terraced pools and cascades was of the purest white tint, the other
+of the most delicate pink, the waters topping over the edge of each
+pool and falling in a miniature cascade to the one next below, thus
+keeping the edges built up by a continual renewal of the silicious
+incrustation.  But all their beauty could not save them from utter
+and irremediable destruction by the forces below the earth's
+surface.
+
+On June 9, 1886, a great volcanic disturbance began in the Auckland
+Lake region with a tremendous earthquake, followed during the night
+by many others.  At seven the next morning a lead-covered cloud of
+pumice sand, advancing from the south, burst and discharged showers
+of fine dust.  The range of Mount Tarawera seemed to be in full
+volcanic activity, including some craters supposed to be extinct,
+and embracing an area of one hundred and twenty miles by twenty.
+
+The showers of dust were so thick as to turn day into night for
+nearly two days.  Some lives were lost, and several villages were
+destroyed, these being covered ten feet deep with ashes, dust and
+clayey mud.  The volcanic phenomena were of the most violent
+character, and the whole island appears to have been more or less
+convulsed.  Mount Tarawera is said to be five hundred feet higher
+than before the eruption; glowing masses were thrown up into the
+air, and tongues of fiery hue, gases or illuminated vapors, five
+hundred feet wide, towered up one thousand feet high.  The mountain
+was 2,700 feet in height.
+
+
+TARAWERA IN ERUPTION
+
+
+This eruption presented a spectacle of rarely-equalled grandeur.
+To travelers and strangers the greatest resultant loss will be the
+destruction of those world-famous curiosities, the white and pink
+terraces, in the vicinity of Lake Rotomahana and the region of the
+famous geysers.  The natives have a superstition that the eruption
+of the extinct Tarawera was caused by the profanation of foreign
+footsteps.  It was to them a sacred place, and its crater a
+repository for their dead.  The first earthquake occurred in this
+region.  One side of the mountain fell in, and then the eruption
+began.  The basin of the lake was broken up and disappeared, but
+again reappeared as a boiling mud cauldron; craters burst out in
+various places, and the beautiful terraces were no more.  After the
+first day the violence gradually diminished, and in a week had
+ceased.  Very possibly another lake will be formed, and in time
+other terraces; but it is hardly within the range of probability
+that the beauty of the lost terraces will ever be paralleled.
+
+In this eruption, as usual, we find the earthquake preceding the
+volcanic outburst.  New Zealand, like the Philippines, Java and the
+Japanese Islands, is situated over a great earth-fissure or line of
+weakness.  Subsidence or dislocation from tensile strain of the
+crust took place, and the influx of water to new regions of heated
+strata may have developed the explosive force.  The earthquake and
+the volcano worked together here, as they frequently do,
+unfortunately in this case destroying one of the most beautiful
+scenes on the surface of the globe.
+
+
+THE ANTARCTIC VOLCANOES
+
+
+Much further south, on the frozen shore of Victoria Land in the
+Antarctic regions, Sir James Ross, in 1841, sailing in his
+discovery ships the Erebus and Terror, discovered two great
+volcanic mountains, which he named after those two vessels.  Mount
+Erebus is continually covered, from top to bottom, with snow and
+glaciers.  The mountain is about 12,000 feet high, and although the
+snow reaches to the very edge of the crater, there rise continually
+from the summit immense volumes of volcanic fumes, illuminated by
+the glare of glowing lava beneath them.  The vapors ascend to an
+estimated height of 2,200 feet above the top of the mountain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+The Wonderful Hawaiian Craters and Kilauea's Lake of Fire.
+
+
+In the central region of the North Pacific Ocean lies the
+archipelago formerly known as the Sandwich Islands, now
+collectively designated as Hawaii.  The people of the United States
+should be specially interested in this island group, for it has
+become one of our possessions, an outlying Territory of our growing
+Republic, and in making it part of our national domain we have not
+alone extended our dominion far over the seas, but have added to
+the many marvels of nature within our land one of the chief wonders
+of the world, the stupendous Hawaiian volcanoes, before whose
+grandeur many of more ancient fame sink into insignificance.
+
+
+THE ISLAND OF HAWAII
+
+
+The Island of Hawaii, the principal island of the group, we may
+safely say contains the most enormous volcano of the earth.
+Indeed, the whole island, which is 4000 square miles in extent, may
+be regarded as of volcanic origin.  It contains four volcanic
+mountains--Kohola, Hualalia, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.  The two last
+named are the chief, the former being 13,800 feet, the latter
+13,600 feet, above the sea-level.  Although their height is so
+vast, the ascent to their summits is so gradual that their
+circumference at the base is enormous.  The bulk of each of them is
+reckoned to be equal to two and a half times that of Etna.  Some of
+the streams of lava which have emanated from them are twenty-six
+miles in length by two miles in breadth.
+
+On the adjoining island of Maui is a still larger volcano, the
+mighty Haleakala, long since extinct, but memorable as possessing
+the most stupendous crater on the face of the earth.  The mountain
+itself is over 10,000 feet high, and forms a great dome-like mass
+of 90 miles circumference at base.  The crater on its summit has a
+length of 7 1/2 and a width of 2 1/4 miles, with a total area of
+about sixteen square miles.  The only approach in dimensions to
+this enormous opening exists in the still living crater of Kilauea,
+on the flank of Mauna Loa.
+
+
+A VOLCANIC ISLAND GROUP
+
+
+The peaks named are the most apparent remnants of a world-rending
+volcanic activity in the remote past, by whose force this whole
+Hawaiian island group was lifted up from the depths of the ocean,
+here descending some three and a half miles below the surface
+level.  The coral reefs which abound around the islands are of
+comparatively recent formation, and rest upon a substratum of lava
+probably ages older, which forms the base of the archipelago.  The
+islands are volcanic peaks and ridges that have been pushed up
+above the surrounding seas by the profound action of the interior
+forces of the earth.
+
+It must not be supposed that this action was a violent
+perpendicular thrust upward over a very limited locality, for the
+mountains continue to slope at about the same angle under the sea
+and for great distances on every side, so that the islands are
+really the crests of an extensive elevation, estimated to cover an
+area of about 2000 miles in one direction by 150 or 200 miles in
+the other.  The process was probably a gradual one of up-building,
+by means of which the sea receded as the land steadily rose.  Some
+idea of the mighty forces that have been at work beneath the sea
+and above it can be gained by considering the enormous mass of
+material now above the sea-level.  Thus, the bulk of the island of
+Hawaii, the largest of the group, has been estimated by the
+Hawaiian Surveyor General as containing 3,600 cubic miles of lava
+rock above sea-level.  Taking the area of England at 50,000 square
+miles, this mass of volcanic matter would cover that entire country
+to a depth of 274 feet.  We must remember, however, that what is
+above sea-level is only a small fraction of the total amount, since
+it sweeps down below the waves hundreds of miles on every side.
+
+
+CRATER OF HALEAKALA
+
+
+Of the lava openings on these islands, the extinct one of
+Haleakala, as stated, with its twenty-seven miles circumference, is
+far the most stupendous.  It is easy of access, the mountain sides
+leading to it presenting a gentle slope; while the walls of the
+crater, in places perpendicular, in others are so sloping that man
+and horse can descend them.  The pit varies from 1500 to 2000 feet
+in depth, its bottom being very irregular from the old lava flows
+and the many cinder cones, these still looking as fresh as though
+their fires had just gone out.  Some of these cones are over 500
+feet high.  There is a tradition among the natives that the vast
+lava streams which in the past flowed from the crater to the sea
+continued to do so in the period of their remote ancestors.  They
+still, indeed, appear as if recent, though there are to-day no
+signs of volcanic activity anywhere on this island.
+
+In fact, the only volcano now active in the Hawaiian Islands is
+Mauna Loa, in the southern section of the Island of Hawaii.  A
+striking feature of this is that it has two distinct and widely
+disconnected craters, one on its summit, the other on its flank, at
+a much lower level.  The latter is the vast crater of Kilauea, the
+largest active crater known on the face of the globe.
+
+
+MISS BIRD IN THE CRATER OF KILAUEA
+
+
+We cannot offer a better description of the aspect of this lava
+abyss than to give Miss Bird's eloquent description of her
+adventurous descent into it:
+
+"The abyss, which really is at a height of four thousand feet on
+the flank of Mauna Loa, has the appearance of a pit on a rolling
+plain.  But such a pit!  It is quite nine miles in circumference,
+and at its lowest area--which not long ago fell about three hundred
+feet, just as the ice on a pond falls when the water below is
+withdrawn--covers six square miles.  The depth of the crater varies
+from eight hundred to one thousand feet, according as the molten
+sea below is at flood or ebb.  Signs of volcanic activity are
+present more or less throughout its whole depth and for some
+distance along its margin, in the form of steam-cracks, jets of
+sulphurous vapor, blowing cones, accumulating deposits of acicular
+crystals of sulphur, etc., and the pit itself is constantly rent
+and shaken by earthquakes.  Great eruptions occur with
+circumstances of indescribable terror and dignity; but Kilauea does
+not limit its activity to these outbursts, but has exhibited its
+marvellous phenomena through all known time in a lake or lakes on
+the southern part of the crater three miles from this side.
+
+"This lake--the Hale-mau-mau, or "House of everlasting Fire", of
+the Hawaiian mythology, the abode of the dreaded goddess Pele--is
+approachable with safety, except during an eruption.  The
+spectacle, however, varies almost daily; and at times the level of
+the lava in the pit within a pit is so low, and the suffocating
+gases are evolved in such enormous quantities, that travellers are
+unable to see anything.
+
+"At the time of our visit there had been no news from it for a
+week; and as nothing was to be seen but a very faint bluish vapor
+hanging round its margin, the prospect was not encouraging.  After
+more than an hour of very difficult climbing, we reached the lowest
+level of the crater, pretty nearly a mile across, presenting from
+above the appearance of a sea at rest; but on crossing it, we found
+it to be an expanse of waves and convolutions of ashy-colored lava,
+with huge cracks filled up with black iridescent rolls of lava only
+a few weeks old.  Parts of it are very rough and ridgy, jammed
+together like field-ice, or compacted by rolls of lava, which may
+have swelled up from beneath; but the largest part of the area
+presents the appearance of huge coiled hawsers, the ropy formation
+of the lava rendering the illusion almost perfect.  These are riven
+by deep cracks, which emit hot sulphurous vapors.
+
+"As we ascended, the flow became hotter under our feet, as well as
+more porous and glistening.  It was so hot that a shower of rain
+hissed as it fell upon it.  The crust became increasingly insecure,
+and necessitated our walking in single file with the guide in
+front, to test the security of the footing.  I fell through several
+times, and always into holes full of sulphurous steam so
+malignantly acid that my strong dogskin gloves were burned through
+as I raised myself on my hands.
+
+"We had followed the lava-flow for thirty miles up to the crater's
+brink, and now we had toiled over recent lava for three hours, and,
+by all calculations, were close to the pit; yet there was no smoke
+or sign of fire, and I felt sure that the volcano had died out for
+once for my special disappointment.
+
+"Suddenly, just above and in front of us, gory drops were tossed in
+the air, and springing forwards, we stood on the brink of Hale-mau-
+mau, which was about thirty-five feet below us.  I think we all
+screamed.  I know we all wept; but we were speechless, for a new
+glory and terror had been added to the earth.  It is the most
+unutterable of wonderful things.  The words of common speech are
+quite useless.  It is unimaginable, indescribable; a sight to
+remember forever; a sight which at once took possession of every
+faculty of sense and soul, removing one altogether out of the range
+of ordinary life.  Here was the real 'bottomless pit', 'the fire
+which is not quenched', 'the place of Hell', 'the lake which
+burneth with fire and brimstone', 'the everlasting burnings', 'the
+fiery sea whose waves are never weary'.  Perhaps those Scripture
+phrases were suggested by the sight of some volcano in eruption.
+There were groanings, rumblings, and detonations; rushings,
+hissings, splashings, and the crashing sound of breakers on the
+coast; but it was the surging of fiery waves upon a fiery shore.
+But what can I write?  Such words as jets, fountains, waves, spray,
+convey some idea of order and regularity, but here there are none.
+
+"The inner lake, while we stood there, formed a sort of crater
+within itself; the whole lava sea rose about three feet; a blowing
+cone about eight feet high was formed; it was never the same two
+minutes together.  And what we saw had no existence a month before,
+and probably will be changed in every essential feature a month
+from hence.  The prominent object was fire in motion; but the
+surface of the double lake was continually skimming over for a
+second or two with a cool crust of lustrous grey-white, like frost-
+silver, broken by jagged cracks of a bright rose-color.  The
+movement was nearly always from the sides to the centre; but the
+movement of the centre itself appeared independent, and always took
+a southerly direction.  Before each outburst of agitation there was
+much hissing and throbbing, with internal roaring as of imprisoned
+gases.  Now it seemed furious, demoniacal, as if no power on earth
+could bind it, then playful and sportive; then for a second
+languid, but only because it was accumulating fresh force.
+Sometimes the whole lake took the form of mighty waves, and,
+surging heavily against the partial barrier with a sound like the
+Pacific surf, lashed, tore, covered it, and threw itself over it in
+clots of living fire.  It was all confusion, commotion, forces,
+terror, glory, majesty, mystery, and even beauty.  And the color,
+'eye hath not seen' it!  Molten metal hath not that crimson gleam,
+nor blood that living light."
+
+To this description we may add that of Mr. Ellis, a former
+missionary to these islands, and one of the number who have
+descended to the shores of Kilauea's abyss of fire.  He says, after
+describing his difficult descent and progress over the lava-strewn
+pit:
+
+
+MR. ELLIS VISITS THE LAKE OF LAVA
+
+
+"Immediately before us yawned an immense gulf, in the form of a
+crescent, about two miles in length, from northeast to southwest;
+nearly a mile in width, and apparently 800 feet deep.  The bottom
+was covered with lava, and the southwestern and northern parts of
+it were one vast flood of burning matter in a state of terrific
+ebullition, rolling to and fro its 'fiery surges' and flaming
+billows.  Fifty-one conical islands, of varied form and size,
+containing as many craters, rose either round the edge or from the
+surface of the burning lake; twenty-two constantly emitted columns
+of gray smoke or pyramids of brilliant flame, and several of these
+at the same time vomited from their ignited mouths streams of lava,
+which rolled in blazing torrents down their black indented sides
+into the boiling mass below.
+
+"The existence of these conical craters led us to conclude that the
+boiling cauldron of lava before us did not form the focus of the
+volcano; that this mass of melted lava was comparatively shallow,
+and that the basin in which it was contained was separated by a
+stratum of solid matter from the great volcanic abyss, which
+constantly poured out its melted contents through these numerous
+craters into this upper reservoir.  The sides of the gulf before
+us, although composed of different strata of ancient lava, were
+perpendicular for about 400 feet, and rose from a wide horizontal
+ledge of solid black lava of irregular breadth, but extending
+completely round.  Beneath this ledge the sides sloped gradually
+towards the burning lake, which was, as nearly as we could judge,
+300 or 400 feet lower.
+
+"It was evident that the large crater had been recently filled with
+liquid lava up to this black ledge, and had, by some subterraneous
+canal, emptied itself into the sea or spread under the low land on
+the shore.  The gray and in some places apparently calcined sides
+of the great crater before us, the fissures which intersected the
+surface of the plain on which we were standing, the long banks of
+sulphur on the opposite side of the abyss, the vigorous action of
+the numerous small craters on its borders, the dense columns of
+vapor and smoke that rose at the north and west end of the plain,
+together with the ridge of steep rocks by which it was surrounded,
+rising probably in some places 300 or 400 feet in perpendicular
+height, presented an immense volcanic panorama, the effect of which
+was greatly augmented by the constant roaring of the vast furnaces
+below."
+
+
+MAUNA LOA IN ERUPTION
+
+
+Of the two great craters of Mauna Loa, the summit one has
+frequently in modern times overflowed its crest and poured its
+molten streams in glowing rivers over the land.  This has rarely
+been the case with the lower and incessantly active crater of
+Kilauea, whose lava, when in excess, appears to escape by
+subterranean channels to the sea.  We append descriptions of some
+of the more recent examples of Mauna Loa's eruptive energy.  The
+lava from this crater does not alone flow over the crater's lip,
+but at times makes its way through fissures far below, the immense
+pressure causing it to spout in great flashing fountains high into
+the air.  In 1852 the fiery fountains reached a height of 500 feet.
+In some later eruptions they have leaped 1,000 feet high.  The lava
+is white hot as it ascends, but it assumes a blood-red tint in its
+fall, and strikes the ground with a frightful noise.
+
+The quantities of lava ejected in some of the recent eruptions have
+been enormous.  The river-like flow of 1855 was remarkable for its
+extent, being from two to eight miles wide, with a depth of from
+three to three hundred feet, and extending in a winding course for
+a distance of sixty miles.  The Apostle of Hawaiian volcanoes, the
+Rev. Titus Coan, who ventured to the source of this flow while it
+was in supreme action, thus describes it:--
+
+"We ascended our rugged pathway amidst steam and smoke and heat
+which almost blinded and scathed us.  We came to open orifices down
+which we looked into the fiery river which rushed madly under our
+feet.  These fiery vents were frequent, some of them measuring ten,
+twenty, fifty or one hundred feet in diameter.  In one place we saw
+the river of lava uncovered for thirty rods and rushing down a
+declivity of from ten to twenty-five degrees.  The scene was awful,
+the momentum incredible, the fusion perfect (white heat), and the
+velocity forty miles an hour.  The banks on each side of the stream
+were red-hot, jagged and overhanging.  As we viewed it rushing out
+from under its ebon counterpane, and in the twinkling of an eye
+diving again into its fiery den, it seemed to say, 'Stand off!
+Scan me not!  I am God's messenger.  A work to do.  Away!'"
+
+Later he wrote again:--"The great summit fountain is still playing
+with fearful energy, and the devouring stream rushes madly down
+toward us.  It is now about ten miles distant, and heading directly
+for our bay.  In a few days we may be called to announce the
+painful fact that our beauteous Hilo is no more,--that our lovely,
+our inimitable landscape, our emerald bowers, our crescent strand
+and our silver bay are blotted out.  A fiery sword hangs over us.
+A flood of burning ruin approaches us.  Devouring fires are near
+us.  With sure and solemn progress the glowing fusion advances
+through the dark forest and the dense jungle in our rear, cutting
+down ancient trees of enormous growth and sweeping away all
+vegetable life.  For months the great summit furnace on Mauna Loa
+has been in awful blast.  Floods of burning destruction have swept
+wildly and widely over the top and down the sides of the mountain.
+The wrathful stream has overcome every obstacle, winding its fiery
+way from its high source to the bases of the everlasting hills,
+spreading in a molten sea over the plains, penetrating the ancient
+forests, driving the bellowing herds, the wild goats and the
+affrighted birds before its lurid glare, leaving nothing but ebon
+blackness and smoldering ruin in its track."
+
+His anticipation of the burial of Hilo under the mighty flow was
+happily not realized.  It came to an abrupt halt while seven miles
+distant, the checked stream standing in a threatening and rugged
+ridge, with rigid, beetling front.
+
+
+THE ERUPTIONS OF 1859 AND 1865
+
+
+In January, 1859, Mauna Loa was again at its fire-play, throwing up
+lava fountains from 800 to 1,000 feet in height.  From this great
+fiery fountain the lava flowed down in numerous streams, spreading
+over a width of five or six miles.  One stream, probably formed by
+the junction of several smaller, attained a height of from twenty
+to twenty-five feet, and a breadth of about an eighth of a mile.
+Great stones were thrown up along with the jet of lava, and the
+volume of seeming smoke, composed probably of fine volcanic dust,
+is said to have risen to the height of 10,000 feet.
+
+An eruption of still greater violence took place in 1865,
+characterized by similar phenomena, particularly the throwing up of
+jets of lava.  This fiery fountain continued to play without
+intermission for twenty days and nights, varying only as respects
+the height to which the jet arose, which is said to have ranged
+between 100 and 1,000 feet, the mean diameter of the jet being
+about 100 feet.  This eruption was accompanied by explosions so
+loud as to have been heard at a distance of forty miles.
+
+A cone of about 300 feet in height, and about a mile in
+circumference, was accumulated round the orifice whence the jet
+ascended.  It was composed of solid matters ejected with the lava,
+and it continued to glow like a furnace, notwithstanding its
+exposure to the air.  The current of lava on this occasion flowed
+to a distance of thirty-five miles, burning its way through the
+forests, and filling the air with smoke and flames from the ignited
+timber.  The glare from the glowing lava and the burning trees
+together was discernible by night at a distance of 200 miles from
+the island.
+
+
+THE LAVA FLOW OF 1880
+
+
+A succeeding great lava flow was that which began on November 6,
+1880.  Mr. David Hitchcock, who was camping on Mauna Kea at the
+time of this outbreak, saw a spectacle that few human eyes have
+ever beheld.  "We stood," writes he, "on the very edge of that
+flowing river of rock.  Oh, what a sight it was!  Not twenty feet
+from us was this immense bed of rock slowly moving forward with
+irresistible force, bearing on its surface huge rocks and immense
+boulders of tons' weight as water would carry a toy-boat.  The
+whole front edge was one bright red mass of solid rock incessantly
+breaking off from the towering mass and rolling down to the foot of
+it, to be again covered by another avalanche of white-hot rocks and
+sand.  The whole mass at its front edge was from twelve to thirty
+feet in height.  Along the entire line of its advance it was one
+crash of rolling, sliding, tumbling red-hot rock.  We could hear no
+explosions while we were near the flow, only a tremendous roaring
+like ten thousand blast furnaces all at work at once."
+
+This was the most extensive flow of recent years, and its progress
+from the interior plain through the dense forests above Hilo and
+out on to the open levels close to the town was startling and
+menacing enough.  Through the woods especially it was a turbulent,
+seething mass that hurled down mammoth trees, and licked up streams
+of water, and day and night kept up an unintermitting cannonade of
+explosions.  The steam and imprisoned gases would burst the
+congealing surface with loud detonations that could be heard for
+many miles.  It was not an infrequent thing for parties to camp out
+close to the flow over night.  Ordinarily a lava-flow moves
+sluggishly and congeals rapidly, so that what seems like hardihood
+in the narrating is in reality calm judgment, for it is perfectly
+safe to be in the close vicinity of a lava-stream, and even to walk
+on its surface as soon as one would be inclined to walk on cooling
+iron in a foundry.  This notable flow finally ceased within half a
+mile of Hilo, where its black form is a perpetual reminder of a
+marvellous deliverance from destruction.
+
+
+KILAUEA IN 1840
+
+
+Kilauea seems never, in historic times, to have filled and
+overflowed its vast crater.  To do so would need an almost
+inconceivable volume of liquid rock material.  But it approached
+this culmination in 1840, when it became, through its whole extent,
+a raging sea of fire.  The boiling lava rose in the mighty
+mountain-cup to a height of from 500 to 600 feet.  Then it forced a
+passage through a subterranean cavity twenty-seven miles long, and
+reached the sea forty miles distant, in two days.  The stream where
+it fell into the sea was half a mile wide, and the flow kept up for
+three weeks, heating the ocean twenty miles from land.  An eye-
+witness of this extraordinary flow thus describes it:
+
+"When the torrent of fire precipitated itself into the ocean, the
+scene assumed a character of terrific and indescribable grandeur.
+The magnificence of destruction was never more perceptibly
+displayed than when these antagonistic elements met in deadly
+strife.  The mightiest of earth's magazines of fire poured forth
+its burning billows to meet the mightiest of oceans.  For two score
+miles it came rolling, tumbling, swelling forward, an awful agent
+of death.  Rocks melted like wax in its path; forests crackled and
+blazed before its fervent heat; the works of man were to it but as
+a scroll in the flames.  Imagine Niagara's stream, above the brink
+of the Falls, with its dashing, whirling, madly-raging waters
+hurrying on to their plunge, instantaneously converted into fire; a
+gory-hued river of fused minerals; volumes of hissing steam
+arising; some curling upward from ten thousand vents, which give
+utterance to as many deep-toned mutterings, and sullen, confined
+clamorings; gases detonating and shrieking as they burst from their
+hot prison-house; the heavens lurid with flame; the atmosphere dark
+and oppressive; the horizon murky with vapors and gleaming with the
+reflected contest!
+
+"Such was the scene as the fiery cataract, leaping a precipice of
+fifty feet, poured its flood upon the ocean.  The old line of
+coast, a mass of compact, indurated lava, whitened, cracked and
+fell.  The waters recoiled, and sent forth a tempest of spray; they
+foamed and dashed around and over the melted rock, they boiled with
+the heat, and the roar of the conflicting agencies grew fiercer and
+louder.  The reports of the exploding gases were distinctly heard
+twenty-five miles distant, and were likened to a whole broadside of
+heavy artillery.  Streaks of the intensest light glanced like
+lightning in all directions; the outskirts of the burning lava as
+it fell, cooled by the shock, were shivered into millions of
+fragments, and scattered by the strong wind in sparkling showers
+far into the country.  For three successive weeks the volcano
+disgorged an uninterrupted burning tide, with scarcely any
+diminution, into the ocean.  On either side, for twenty miles, the
+sea became heated, with such rapidity that, on the second day of
+the junction of the lava with the ocean, fishes came ashore dead in
+great numbers, at a point fifteen miles distant.  Six weeks later,
+at the base of the hills, the water continued scalding hot, and
+sent forth steam at every wash of the waves."
+
+
+THE SINKING OF KILAUEA'S FIRE-LAKE
+
+
+In 1866 the great crater of Kilauea presented a new and unlooked-
+for spectacle in the sinking and vanishing of its great lava lake.
+In March of that year the fires in the ancient cauldron totally
+disappeared, and the surrounding lava rock sank to a depth of
+nearly 600 feet.  Mr. Thrum, in a pamphlet on "The Suspended
+Activity of Kilauea," says of it:
+
+"Distant rumbling noises were heard, accompanied by a series of
+earthquakes, forty-three in number.  With the fourth shock the
+brilliancy of New Lake disappeared, and towards 3 A. M. the fires
+in Halemaumau disappeared also, leaving the whole crater in
+darkness.
+
+"With the dawn the shocks and noises ceased, and revealed the
+changes which Kilauea had undergone in the night.  All the high
+cliffs surrounding Halemaumau and New Lake, which had become a
+prominent feature in the crater, had vanished entirely, and the
+molten lava of both lakes had disappeared by some subterranean
+passage from the bottom of Halemaumau.  There was no material
+change in the sunken portion of the crater except a continual
+falling in of rocks and debris from its banks as the contraction
+from its former intense heat loosened their compactness and sent
+them hurling some 200 or 300 feet below, giving forth at times a
+boom as of distant thunder, followed by clouds of cinders and ashes
+shooting up into the air 100 to 300 feet, proportionate, doubtless,
+to the size of the newly fallen mass.
+
+This remarkable recession of the liquid lava in Halemaumau was
+probably due to the opening of some deep subterranean passage
+through which the lake of lava made its way unseen to the ocean's
+depths.  The Rev. Mr. Baker, probably the most adventuresome
+explorer of Hawaiian volcanoes, actually descended into that
+crumbling pit to a point within what he judged to be fifty feet of
+the bottom.  But Halemaumau had only taken an intermission, for in
+two short months signs of returning life became frequent and
+unmistakable, and, in June, culminated in the sudden outbreak of a
+lake that has since then steadily increased in activity.
+
+
+THE GODDESS PELE
+
+
+We cannot close this chapter without some reference to the Goddess
+Pele, to whom the Hawaiians long imputed the wonder-work of their
+volcanic mountains.  When there is unusual commotion in Kilauea
+myriads of thread-like filaments float in the air and fall upon the
+cliffs, making deposits much resembling matted hair.  A single
+filament over fifteen inches long was picked up on a Hilo veranda,
+having sailed in the air a distance of fifty miles.  This is the
+famous Pele's Hair, being the glass-like product of volcanic fires.
+It resembles Prince Rupert's Drops, and the tradition is that
+whenever the volcano becomes active it is because Pele, the Goddess
+of the crater, emerges from her fiery furnace and shakes her
+vitreous locks in anger.
+
+This fabled being, according to Emerson, in a paper on "The Lesser
+Hawaiian Gods," "could at times assume the appearance of a handsome
+young woman, as when Kamapauaa, to his cost, was smitten with her
+charms when first he saw her with her sisters at Kilauea."
+Kamapauaa was a gigantic hog, who "could appear as a handsome young
+man, a hog, a fish or a tree."  "At other times the innate
+character of the fury showed itself, and Pele appeared in her usual
+form as an ugly and hateful old hag, with tattered and fire-burnt
+garments, scarcely concealing the filth and nakedness of her
+person.  Her bloodshot eyes and fiendish countenance paralized the
+beholder, and her touch turned him to stone.  She was a jealous and
+vindictive monster, delighting in cruelty, and at the slightest
+provocation overwhelming the unoffending victims of her rage in
+widespread ruin."
+
+The superstition regarding the Goddess Pele was thought to have
+received a death blow in 1825, when Kapiolani, an Hawaiian princess
+and a Christian convert, ascended, with numerous attendants, to the
+crater of Kilauea, where she publicly defied the power and wrath of
+the goddess.  No response came to her defiance, she descended in
+safety, and faith in Pele's power was widely shaken.
+
+Yet as late as 1887 the old superstition revived and claimed an
+exalted victim, for in that year the Princess Like Like, the
+youngest sister of the king, starved herself to death to appease
+the anger of the Goddess Pele, supposed to be manifested in Mauna
+Loa's eruption of that year, and to be quieted only by the
+sacrifice of a victim of royal blood.  Thus slowly do the old
+superstitions die away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+Popocatapetl and Other Volcanoes of Mexico and Central America.
+
+
+Mexico is very largely a vast table-land, rising through much of
+its extent to an elevation of from 7,000 to 8,000 feet above sea-
+level, and bounded east and west by wide strips of torrid lowlands
+adjoining the oceans.  It is crossed at about 19 degrees north
+latitude by a range of volcanic mountains, running in almost a
+straight line east and west, upon which are several extinct
+volcanic cones, and five active or quiescent volcanoes.  The
+highest of these is Popocatapetl, south of the city of Mexico and
+nearly midway between the Atlantic and Pacific.
+
+East of this mountain lies Orizabo, little below it in height, and
+San Martin or Tuxtla, 9,700 feet high, on the coast south of Vera
+Cruz.  West of it is Jorullo, 4,000 feet, and Colima, 12,800, near
+the Pacific coast.  The volcanic energy continues southward toward
+the Isthmus, but decreases north of this volcanic range.  These
+mountains have shown little signs of activity in recent times.
+Popocatapetl emits smoke, but there is no record of an eruption
+since 1540.  Orizabo has been quiet since 1566.  Tuxtla had a
+violent eruption in 1793, but since then has remained quiescent.
+Colima is the only one now active.  For ten years past it has been
+emitting ashes and smoke.  The most remarkable of these volcanoes
+is Jorullo, which closely resembled Monte Nuovo, described in
+Chapter XIII., in its mode of origin.
+
+Popocatapetl, the hill that smokes, in the Mexican language, the
+huge mountain clothed in eternal snows, and regarded by the
+idolaters of old as a god, towers up nearly 18,000 feet above the
+level of the sea, and in the days of the conquest of Mexico was a
+volcano in a state of fierce activity.  It was looked upon by the
+natives with a strange dread, and they told the white strangers
+with awe that no man could attempt to ascend its slopes and yet
+live; but, from a feeling of vanity, or the love of adventure, the
+Spaniards laughed at these fears, and accordingly a party of ten of
+the followers of Cortes commenced the ascent, accompanied by a few
+Indians.  But these latter, after ascending about 13,000 feet to
+where the last remains of stunted vegetation existed, became
+alarmed at the subterranean bellowings of the volcano, and
+returned, while the Spaniards still painfully toiled on through the
+rarefied atmosphere, their feet crushing over the scoriae and
+black-glazed volcanic sand, until they stood in the region of
+perpetual snow, amidst the glittering, treacherous glaciers and
+crevasses, with vast slippery-pathed precipices yawning round.
+
+Still they toiled on in this wild and wondrous region.  A few hours
+before they were in a land of perpetual summer; here all was snow.
+They suffered the usual distress awarded to those who dare to
+ascend to these solitudes of nature but it was not given to them to
+achieve the summit, for suddenly, at a higher elevation, after
+listening to various ominous threatenings from the interior of the
+volcano, they encountered so fierce a storm of smoke, cinders, and
+sparks, that they were driven back half suffocated to the lower
+portions of the mountain.
+
+Some time after another attempt was made; and upon this occasion
+with a definite object.  The invaders had nearly exhausted their
+stock of gunpowder, and Cortes organized a party to ascend to the
+crater of the volcano, to seek and bring down sulphur for the
+manufacture of this necessary of warfare.  This time the party
+numbered but five, led by one Francisco Montano; and they
+experienced no very great difficulty in winning their way upwards.
+The region of verdure gave place to the wild, lava-strewn slope,
+which was succeeded in its turn by the treacherous glaciers; and at
+last the gallant little band stood at the very edge of the crater,
+a vast depression of over a league in circumference, and 1,000 feet
+in depth.
+
+
+SULPHUR FROM THE CRATER
+
+
+Flame was issuing from the hideous abysses, and the stoutest man's
+heart must have quailed as he peered down into the dim, mysterious
+cavity to where the sloping sides were crusted with bright yellow
+sulphur, and listened to the mutterings which warned him of the
+pent-up wrath and power of the mighty volcano.  They knew that at
+any moment flame and stifling sulphurous vapor might be belched
+forth, but now no cowardice was shown.  They had come provided with
+ropes and baskets, and it only remained to see who should descend.
+Lots were therefore drawn, and it fell to Montano, who was
+accordingly lowered by his followers in a basket 400 feet into the
+treacherous region of eternal fires.
+
+The basket swayed and the rope quivered and vibrated, but the brave
+cavalier sturdily held to his task, disdaining to show fear before
+his humble companions.  The lurid light from beneath flashed upon
+his tanned features, and a sulphurous steam rose slowly and
+condensed upon the sides; but, whatever were his thoughts, the
+Spaniard collected as much sulphur as he could take up with him,
+breaking off the bright incrustations, and even dallying with his
+task as if in contempt of the danger, till he had leisurely filed
+his basket, when the signal was given and he was drawn up.  The
+basket was emptied, and then he once more descended into the lurid
+crater, collected another store and was again drawn up; but far
+from shrinking from his task, he descended again several times,
+till a sufficiency had been obtained, with which the party
+descended to the plain.
+
+
+THE VOLCANO JORULLO
+
+
+No further back than the middle of the eighteenth century the site
+of Jorullo was a level plain, including several highly-cultivated
+fields, which formed the farm of Don Pedro di Jorullo.  The plain
+was watered by two small rivers, called Cuitimba and San Pedro, and
+was bounded by mountains composed of basalt--the only indications
+of former volcanic action.  These fields were well irrigated, and
+among the most fertile in the country, producing abundant crops of
+sugar-cane and indigo.
+
+In the month of June, 1759, the cultivators of the farm began to be
+disturbed by strange subterranean noises of an alarming kind,
+accompanied by frequent shocks of earthquake, which continued for
+nearly a couple of months; but they afterward entirely ceased, so
+that the inhabitants of the place were lulled into security.  On
+the night between the 28th and 29th of September, however, the
+subterranean noises were renewed with greater loudness than before,
+and the ground shook severely.  The Indian servants living on the
+place started from their beds in terror, and fled to the
+neighboring mountains.  Thence gazing upon their master's farm they
+beheld it, along with a tract of ground measuring between three and
+four square miles, in the midst of which it stood, rise up bodily,
+as if it had been inflated from beneath like a bladder.  At the
+edges this tract was uplifted only about 39 feet above the original
+surface, but so great was its convexity that toward the middle it
+attained a height of no less than 524 feet.
+
+The Indians who beheld this strange phenomenon declared that they
+saw flames issuing from several parts of this elevated tract, that
+the entire surface became agitated like a stormy sea, that great
+clouds of ashes, illuminated by volcanic fires glowing beneath
+them, rose at several points, and that white-hot stones were thrown
+to an immense height.  Vast chasms were at the same time opened in
+the ground, and into these the two small rivers above mentioned
+plunged.  Their waters, instead of extinguishing the subterranean
+conflagration, seemed only to add to its intensity.  Quantities of
+mud, enveloping balls of basalt, were then thrown up, and the
+surface of the elevated ground became studded with small cones,
+from which volumes of dense vapor, chiefly steam, were emitted,
+some of the jets rising from 20 to 30 feet in height.
+
+These cones the Indians called ovens, and in many of them was long
+heard a subterranean noise resembling that of water briskly
+boiling.  Out of a great chasm in the midst of those ovens there
+were thrown up six larger elevations, the highest being 1,640 feet
+above the level of the plain, 4,315 above sea level, and now
+constituting the principal volcano of Jorullo.  The smallest of the
+six was 300 feet in height; the others of intermediate elevation.
+The highest of these hills had on its summit a regular volcanic
+crater, whence there have been thrown up great quantities of dross
+and lava, containing fragments of older rocks.  The ashes were
+transported to immense distances, some of them having fallen on the
+houses at Queretaro, more than forty-eight leagues from Jorullo.
+The volcano continued in this energetic state of activity for about
+four months; in the following years its eruptions became less
+frequent, but it still continues to emit volumes of vapor from the
+principal crater, as well as from many of the ovens in the upheaved
+ground.
+
+
+EFFECT ON THE RIVERS
+
+
+The two rivers, which disappeared on the first night of this great
+eruption, now pursue an underground course for about a mile and a
+quarter, and then reappear as hot springs, with a temperature of
+126 degrees F.
+
+This wonderful volcanic upheaval is all the more remarkable, from
+the inland situation of the plain on which it occurred, it being no
+less than 120 miles distant from the nearest ocean, while there is
+no other volcano nearer to it than 80 miles.  The activity of the
+ovens has now ceased, and portions of the upheaved plain on which
+they are situated have again been brought under cultivation, and
+the volcano is in a state of quiescence.
+
+The crater of Popocatapetl, which towers to a height of 17,000
+feet, is a vast circular basin, whose nearly vertical walls are in
+some parts of a pale rose tint, in others quite black.  The bottom
+contains several small fuming cones, whence arise vapors of
+changeable color, being successively red, yellow and white.  All
+round them are large deposits of sulphur, which are worked for
+mercantile purposes.
+
+Orizaba has a little less lofty snow-clad peak.  This mountain was
+in brisk volcanic activity from 1545 to 1560, but has since then
+relapsed into a prolonged repose.  It was climbed, in 1856, by
+Baron Muller, to whose mind the crater appeared like the entrance
+to a lower world of horrible darkness.  He was struck with
+astonishment on contemplating the tremendous forces required to
+elevate and rend such enormous masses--to melt them, and then pile
+them up like towers, until by cooling they became consolidated into
+their present forms.  The internal walls of the crater are in many
+places coated with sulphur, and at the bottom are several small
+volcanic craters.  At the time of his visit the summit was wholly
+covered with snow, but the Indians affirmed that hot vapors
+occasionally ascend from fissures in the rocks.  Since then others
+have reached its summit, among them Angelo Heilprin, the first to
+gaze into the crater of Mont Pelee after its eruption.
+
+
+ERUPTIONS IN NICARAGUA
+
+
+On the 14th of November, 1867, there commenced an eruption from a
+mountain about eight leagues to the eastward of the city of Leon,
+in Nicaragua.  This mountain does not appear to have been
+previously recognized as an active volcano, but it is situated in a
+very volcanic country.  The outburst had probably some connection
+with the earthquake at St. Thomas, which took place on the 18th of
+November following.  The mountain continued in a state of activity
+for about sixteen days.  There was thrown out an immense quantity
+of black sand, which was carried as far as to the coast of the
+Pacific, fifty miles distant.  Glowing stones were projected from
+the crater to an estimated height of three thousand feet.
+
+Central America is more prolific of volcanoes than Mexico, and the
+State of Guatemala in particular.  One authority credits this State
+with fifteen or sixteen and another with more than thirty volcanic
+cones.  Of these at least five are decidedly active.  Tajumalco,
+which was in eruption at the time of the great earthquake of 1863,
+yields great quantities of sulphur, as also does Quesaltenango.
+The most famous is the Volcan de Agua (Water Volcano), so called
+from its overwhelming the old city of Guatemala with a torrent of
+water in 1541.
+
+Nicaragua is also rich in volcanoes, being traversed its entire
+length by a remarkable chain of isolated volcanic cones, several of
+which are to some extent active.  We have already told the story of
+the tremendous eruption of Coseguina in 1835, one of the most
+violent of modern times.  The latest important eruption here was
+that of Ometepec, a volcanic mount on an island of the same name in
+Lake Nicaragua.  This broke a long period of repose on June 19,
+1883, with a severe eruption, in which the lava, pouring from a new
+crater, in seven days overflowed the whole island and drove off its
+population.  Incessant rumblings and earthquake shocks accompanied
+the eruption, and mud, ashes, stones and lava covered the mountain
+slopes, which had been cultivated for many centuries.  These were
+the most recent strong displays of volcanic energy in Central
+America, though former great outflows of lava are indicated by
+great fields of barren rock, which extend for miles.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+The Terrible Eruption of Krakatoa.
+
+
+The most destructive volcanic explosion of recent times, one
+perhaps unequalled in violence in all times, was that of the small
+mountain island of Krakatoa, in the East Indian Archipelago, in
+1883.  This made its effects felt round the entire globe, and
+excited such wide attention that we feel called upon to give it a
+chapter of its own.
+
+The island of Krakatoa lies in the Straits of Sunda, between Java
+and Sumatra.  In size it is insignificant, and had been silent so
+long that its volcanic character was almost lost sight of.  Of its
+early history we know nothing.  At some remote time in the past it
+may have appeared as a large cone, of some twenty-five miles in
+circumference at base and not less than 10,000 feet high.  Then,
+still in unknown times, its cone was blown away by internal forces,
+leaving only a shattered and irregular crater ring.  This crater
+was two or three miles in diameter, while the highest part of its
+walls rose only a few hundred feet above the sea.  Later volcanic
+work built up a number of small cones within the crater, and still
+later a new cone, called Rakata, rose on the edge of the old one to
+a height of 2,623 feet.
+
+The first known event in the history of the island volcano was an
+eruption in the year 1680.  After that it lay in repose, forming a
+group of islands, one much larger than the others.  Some of the
+smaller islands indicated the rim of the old crater, much of which
+was buried under the sea.  Its state of quiescence continued for
+two centuries, a tropical vegetation richly mantled the island, and
+to all appearance it had sunk permanently to rest.
+
+Indications of a coming change appeared in 1880, in the form of
+earthquakes, which shook all the region around.  These continued at
+intervals for more that two years.  Then, on May 20, 1883, there
+were heard at Batavia, a hundred miles away, "booming sounds like
+the firing of artillery."  Next day the captain of a vessel passing
+through the Straits saw that Krakatoa was in eruption, sending up
+clouds of smoke and showers of dust and pumice.  The smoke was
+estimated to reach a height of seven miles, while the volcanic dust
+drifted to localities 300 miles away.
+
+
+AWFUL PREMONITIONS
+
+
+The mountain continued to play for about fourteen weeks with
+varying activity, several parties meanwhile visiting it and making
+observations.  Such an eruption, in ordinary cases, would have
+ultimately died away, with no marked change other than perhaps the
+ejection of a stream of lava.  But such was not now the case.  The
+sequel was at once unexpected and terrible.  As the island was
+uninhabited, no one actually saw what took place, those nearest to
+the scene of the eruption having enough to do to save their own
+lives, while the dense clouds of vapor and dust baffled
+observation.
+
+The phase of greatest violence set in on Sunday, August 26th.  Soon
+after midday sailors on passing ships saw that the island had
+vanished behind a dense cloud of black vapor, the height of which
+was estimated at not less than seventeen miles.  At intervals
+frightful detonations resounded, and after a time a rain of pumice
+began to fall at places ten miles distant.  For miles round fierce
+flashes of lightning rent the vapor, and at a distance of fully
+forty miles ghostly corposants gleamed on the rigging of a vessel.
+
+These phenomena grew more and more alarming until August 27th, when
+four explosions of fearful intensity shook earth and sea and air,
+the third being "far the most violent and productive of the most
+widespread results."  It was, in fact, perhaps the most tremendous
+volcanic outburst, in its intensity, known in human history.  It
+seemed to overcome the obstruction to the energy of the internal
+forces, for the eruption now declined, and in a day or two
+practically died away, though one or two comparatively
+insignificant outbursts took place later.
+
+
+FAR-REACHING DESTRUCTION
+
+
+The eruption spread ruin and death over many surrounding leagues.
+At Krakotoa itself, when men once more reached its shores,
+everything was found to be changed.  About two-thirds of the main
+island were blown completely away.  The marginal cone was cut
+nearly in half vertically, the new cliff falling precipitously
+toward the centre of the crater.  Where land had been before now
+sea existed, in some places more than one hundred feet deep.  But
+the part of the island that remained had been somewhat increased in
+size by ejected materials.
+
+Of the other islands and islets some had disappeared; some were
+partially destroyed; some were enlarged by fallen debris, while
+many changes had taken place in the depth of the neighboring sea-
+bed.  Two new islands, Steers and Calmeyer, were formed.  The
+ejected pumice, so cavernous in structure as to float upon the
+water, at places formed great floating islands which covered the
+sea for miles, and sometimes rose from four to seven feet above it,
+proving a serious obstacle to navigation.  On vessels near by dust
+fell to the depth of eighteen inches.  The enormous clouds of
+volcanic dust which had been flung high into the air darkened the
+sky for a great area around.  At Batavia, about a hundred miles
+from the volcano, it produced an effect not unlike that of a London
+fog.  This began about seven in the morning of August 27th.  Soon
+after ten the light had become lurid and yellow, and lamps were
+required in the houses; then came a downfall of rain, mingled with
+dust, and by about half-past eleven the town was in complete
+darkness.  It soon after began to lighten, and the rain to
+diminish, and about three o'clock it had ceased.
+
+At Buitenzorg, twenty miles further away, the conditions were
+similar, but lasted for a shorter time.  In places much farther
+away the upper sky presented a strangely murky aspect, and the sun
+assumed a green color.  Phenomena of this kind were traced over a
+broad area of the globe, even as far as the Hawaiian Islands, while
+over a yet wider area the sky after sunset was lit up by after-
+glows of extraordinary beauty.  The height to which the dust was
+projected has been calculated from various data, with the result
+that 121,500 feet, or nearly 25 miles, is thought to be a probable
+maximum estimate, though it may be that occasional fragments of
+larger size were shot up to a still greater height.
+
+
+A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE ERUPTION
+
+
+Another effect, of a distressing character, followed the eruption.
+A succession of enormous waves, emanating from Krakatoa, traversed
+the sea, and swept the coast bordering the Straits of Sunda with
+such force as to destroy many villages on the low-lying shores in
+Java, Sumatra and other islands.  Some buildings at a height of
+fifty feet above sea-level were washed away, and in some places the
+water rose higher, in one place reaching the height of 115 feet.
+At Telok Betong, in Sumatra, a ship was carried inland a distance
+of nearly two miles, and left stranded at a height of thirty feet
+above the sea.
+
+The eruption of Krakatoa seems to have been due to some deep-lying
+causes of extraordinary violence, this appearing not only in the
+terrible explosion which tore the island to fragments and sent its
+remnants as floating dust many miles high into the air, but also
+from an internal convulsion that affected many of the volcanoes of
+Java, which almost simultaneously broke into violent eruption.  We
+extract from Dr. Robert Bonney's "Our Earth and its Story" a
+description of these closely-related events.
+
+"The disturbances originated on the island of Krakatoa, with
+eruptions of red hot stones and ashes, and by noon next day Semeru,
+the largest of the Javanese volcanoes, was reported to be belching
+forth flames at an alarming rate.  The eruption soon spread to
+Gunung Guntur and other mountains, until more than a third of the
+forty-five craters of Java were either in activity or seriously
+threatening it.
+
+"Just before dusk a great cloud hung over Gunung Guntur, and the
+crater of the volcano began to emit enormous streams of white
+sulphurous mud and lava, which were rapidly succeeded by
+explosions, followed by tremendous showers of cinders and enormous
+fragments of rock, which were hurled high into the air and
+scattered in all directions, carrying death and destruction with
+them.  The overhanging clouds were, moreover, so charged with
+electricity that water-spouts added to the horror of the scene.
+The eruption continued all Saturday night, and next day a dense
+cloud, shot with lurid red, gathered over the Kedang range,
+intimating that an eruption had broken out there.
+
+"This proved to be the case, for soon after streams of lava poured
+down the mountain sides into the valleys, sweeping everything
+before them.  About two o'clock on Monday morning--we are drawing
+on the account of an eye-witness--the great cloud suddenly broke
+into small sections and vanished.  When light came it was seen that
+an enormous tract of land, extending from Point Capucin on the
+south, and Negery Passoerang on the north and west, to the lowest
+point, covering about fifty square miles, had been temporarily
+submerged by the 'tidal wave.'  Here were situated the villages of
+Negery and Negery Babawang.  Few of the inhabitants of these places
+escaped death.  This section of the island was less densely
+populated than the other portions, and the loss of life was
+comparatively small, although it must have aggregated several
+thousands.  The waters of Welcome Bay in the Sunda Straits, Pepper
+Bay on the east, and the Indian Ocean on the south, had rushed in
+and formed a sea of turbulent waves.
+
+
+DETONATIONS HEARD FOR MANY MILES AWAY
+
+
+"On Monday night the volcano of Papandayang was in an active state
+of paroxysmal eruption, accompanied by detonations which are said
+to have been heard for many miles away.  In Sumatra three distinct
+columns of flame were seen to rise from a mountain to a vast
+height, and its whole surface was soon covered with fiery lava
+streams, which spread to great distances on all sides.  Stones fell
+for miles around, and black fragmentary matter carried into the air
+caused total darkness.  A whirlwind accompanied the eruption, by
+which house-roofs, trees, men, and horses were swept into the air.
+The quantity of matter ejected was such as to cover the ground and
+the roofs of the houses at Denamo to the depth of several inches.
+Suddenly the scene changed.  At first it was reported that
+Papandayang had been split into seven distinct peaks.  This proved
+untrue; but in the open seams formed could be seen great balls of
+molten matter.  From the fissures poured forth clouds of steam and
+black lava, which, flowing in steady streams, ran slowly down the
+mountain sides, forming beds 200 or 300 feet in extent.  At the
+entrance to Batavia was a large group of houses extending along the
+shore, and occupied by Chinamen.  This portion of the city was
+entirely destroyed, and not many of the Chinese who lived on the
+swampy plains managed to save their lives.  They stuck to their
+homes till the waves came and washed them away, fearing torrents of
+flame and lava more than torrents of water.
+
+"Of the 3,500 Europeans and Americans in Batavia--which for several
+hours was in darkness, owing to the fall of ashes--800 perished at
+Anjer.  The European and American quarter was first overwhelmed by
+rocks, mud and lava from the crater, and then the waters came up
+and swallowed the ruins, leaving nothing to mark the site, and
+causing the loss of about 200 lives of the inhabitants and those
+who sought refuge there."
+
+The loss of life above mentioned was but a small fraction of the
+total loss.  All along the coasts of the adjoining large islands
+towns and villages were swept away and their inhabitants drowned,
+till the total loss was, as nearly as could be estimated, 36,000
+souls.  Krakatoa thus surpassed Mont Pelee in its tale of
+destruction.  These two, indeed, have been the most destructive to
+life of known volcanic explosions, since the volcano usually falls
+far short of the earthquake in its murderous results.
+
+The distant effects of this explosion were as remarkable as the
+near ones.  The concussion of the air reached to an unprecedented
+distance and the clouds of floating dust encircled the earth,
+producing striking phenomena of which an account is given at the
+end of this chapter.
+
+The rapidity with which the effects of the Krakatoa eruption made
+themselves evident in all parts of the earth is perhaps the most
+remarkable outcome of this extraordinary event.  The floating
+pumice reached the harbor of St. Paul on the 22nd of March, 1884,
+after having made a voyage of some two hundred and sixty days at a
+rate of six-tenths of a mile an hour.  Immense quantities of pumice
+of a similar description, and believed to have been derived from
+the same source, reached Tamatave in Madagascar five months later,
+and no doubt much of it long continued to float round the world.
+
+
+SERIES OF ATMOSPHERIC WAVES
+
+
+Another result of the eruption was the series of atmospheric waves,
+caused by the disturbance in the atmosphere, which affected the
+barometer over the entire world.  The velocity with which these
+waves traveled has been variously estimated at from 912.09 feet to
+1066.29 feet per second.  This speed is, of course, very much
+inferior to that at which sound travels through the air.  Yet, in
+three distinct cases, the noise of the Krakatoa explosions was
+plainly heard at a distance of at least 2,200 miles, and in one
+instance--that recorded from Rodriguez--of nearly 3,000.  The sound
+travelled to Ceylon, Burmah, Manila, New Guinea and Western
+Australia, places, however, within a radius of about 2,000 miles;
+out Diego Garcia lies outside that area, and Rodriguez a thousand
+miles beyond it.  Six days subsequent to the explosion, after the
+atmospheric waves had traveled four times round the globe, the
+barometer was still affected by them.
+
+Another result, similar in kind, was the extraordinary
+dissemination of the great ocean wave, which in a like manner seems
+to have encircled the earth, since high waves, without evident
+cause, appeared not only in the Pacific, but at many places on the
+Atlantic coast within a few days after the event.  They were
+observed alike in England and at New York.  The writer happened to
+be at Atlantic City, on the New Jersey coast, at this time.  It was
+a period of calm, the winds being at rest, but, unheralded, there
+came in an ocean wave of such height as to sweep away the ocean-
+front boardwalk and do much other damage.  He ascribed this strange
+wave at the time to the Krakatoa explosion, and is of the same
+opinion still.
+
+In addition to the account given of this extraordinary volcanic
+event, it seems desirable to give Sir Robert S. Ball's description
+of it in his recent work, "The Earth's Beginnings."  While
+repeating to some extent what we have already said, it is worthy,
+from its freshness of description and general readability, of a
+place here.
+
+
+SIR ROBERT S. BALL'S DESCRIPTION
+
+
+"Until the year 1883 few had ever heard of Krakatoa.  It was
+unknown to fame, as are hundreds of other gems of glorious
+vegetation set in tropical waters.  It was not inhabited, but the
+natives from the surrounding shores of Sumatra and Java used
+occasionally to draw their canoes up on its beach, while they
+roamed through the jungle in search of the wild fruits that there
+abounded.  It was known to the mariner who navigated the Straits of
+Sunda, for it was marked on his charts as one of the perils of the
+intricate navigation in those waters.  It was no doubt recorded
+that the locality had been once, or more than once, the seat of an
+active volcano.  In fact, the island seemed to owe its existence to
+some frightful eruption of by-gone days; but for a couple of
+centuries there had been no fresh outbreak.  It almost seemed as if
+Krakatoa might be regarded as a volcano that had become extinct.
+In this respect it would only be like many other similar objects
+all over the globe, or like the countless extinct volcanoes all
+over the moon.
+
+"As the summer of 1883 advanced the vigor of Krakatoa, which had
+sprung into notoriety at the beginning of the year, steadily
+increased and the noises became more and more vehement; these were
+presently audible on shores ten miles distant, and then twenty
+miles distant; and still those noises waxed louder and louder,
+until the great thunders of the volcano, now so rapidly developing,
+astonished the inhabitants that dwelt over an area at least as
+large as Great Britain.  And there were other symptoms of the
+approaching catastrophe.  With each successive convulsion a
+quantity of fine dust was projected aloft into the clouds.  The
+wind could not carry this dust away as rapidly as it was hurled
+upward by Krakatoa, and accordingly the atmosphere became heavily
+charged with suspended particles.
+
+"A pall of darkness thus hung over the adjoining seas and islands.
+Such was the thickness and density of these atmospheric volumes of
+Krakatoa dust that, for a hundred miles around, the darkness of
+midnight prevailed at midday.  Then the awful tragedy of Krakatoa
+took place.  Many thousands of the unfortunate inhabitants of the
+adjacent shores of Sumatra and Java were destined never to behold
+the sun again.  They were presently swept away to destruction in an
+invasion of the shore by the tremendous waves with which the seas
+surrounding Krakatoa were agitated.
+
+"As the days of August passed by the spasms of Krakatoa waxed more
+and more vehement.  By the middle of that month the panic was
+widespread, for the supreme catastrophe was at hand.  On the night
+of Sunday, August 26, 1883, the blackness of the dust-clouds, now
+much thicker than ever in the Straits of Sunda and adjacent parts
+of Sumatra and Java, was only occasionally illumined by lurid
+flashes from the volcano.
+
+"At the town of Batavia, a hundred miles distant, there was no
+quiet that night.  The houses trembled with subterranean violence,
+and the windows rattled as if heavy artillery were being discharged
+in the streets.  And still these efforts seemed to be only
+rehearsing for the supreme display.  By ten o'clock on the morning
+of Monday, August 27, 1883, the rehearsals were over, and the
+performance began.  An overture, consisting of two or three
+introductory explosions, was succeeded by a frightful convulsion
+which tore away a large part of the island of Krakatoa and
+scattered it to the winds of heaven.  In that final outburst all
+records of previous explosions on this earth were completely
+broken.
+
+
+AN EXTRAORDINARY NOISE
+
+
+"This supreme effort it was which produced the mightiest noise
+that, so far as we can ascertain, has ever been heard on this
+globe.  It must have been indeed a loud noise which could travel
+from Krakatoa to Batavia and preserve its vehemence over so great a
+distance; but we should form a very inadequate conception of the
+energy of the eruption of Krakatoa if we thought that its sounds
+were heard by those merely a hundred miles off.  This would be
+little indeed compared with what is recorded on testimony which it
+is impossible to doubt.
+
+"Westward from Krakatoa stretches the wide expanse of the Indian
+Ocean.  On the opposite side from the Straits of Sunda lies the
+island of Rodriguez, the distance from Krakatoa being almost three
+thousand miles.  It has been proved by evidence which cannot be
+doubted that the thunders of the great volcano attracted the
+attention of an intelligent coast-guard on Rodriguez, who carefully
+noted the character of the sounds and the time of their occurrence.
+He had heard them just four hours after the actual explosion, for
+this is the time the sound occupied on its journey.
+
+
+A CONSTANT WIND
+
+
+"This mighty incident at Krakatoa has taught us other lessons on
+the constitution of our atmosphere.  We previously knew little, or
+I might say almost nothing, as to the conditions prevailing above
+the height of ten miles overhead.  It was Krakatoa which first gave
+us a little information which was greatly wanted.  How could we
+learn what winds were blowing at a height four times as great as
+the loftiest mountain on the earth, and twice as great as the
+loftiest altitude to which a balloon has ever soared?  No doubt a
+straw will show which way the wind blows, but there are no straws
+up there.  There was nothing to render the winds perceptible until
+Krakatoa came to our aid.  Krakatoa drove into those winds
+prodigious quantities of dust.  Hundreds of cubic miles of air were
+thus deprived of that invisibility which they had hitherto
+maintained.
+
+"With eyes full of astonishment men watched those vast volumes of
+Krakatoa dust on a tremendous journey.  Of course, every one knows
+the so-called trade-winds on our earth's surface, which blow
+steadily in fixed directions, and which are of such service to the
+mariner.  But there is yet another constant wind.  It was first
+disclosed by Krakatoa.  Before the occurrence of that eruption, no
+one had the slightest suspicion that far up aloft, twenty miles
+over our heads, a mighty tempest is incessantly hurrying, with a
+speed much greater than that of the awful hurricane which once laid
+so large a part of Calcutta on the ground and slew so many of its
+inhabitants.  Fortunately for humanity, this new trade-wind does
+not come within less than twenty miles of the earth's surface.  We
+are thus preserved from the fearful destruction that its
+unintermittent blasts would produce, blasts against which no tree
+could stand and which would, in ten minutes, do as much damage to a
+city as would the most violent earthquake.  When this great wind
+had become charged with the dust of Krakatoa, then, for the first,
+and, I may add, for the only time, it stood revealed to human
+vision.  Then it was seen that this wind circled round the earth in
+the vicinity of the equator, and completed its circuit in about
+thirteen days.
+
+
+A VAST CLOUD Of DUST
+
+
+"The dust manufactured by the supreme convulsion was whirled round
+the earth in the mighty atmospheric current into which the volcano
+discharged it.  As the dust-cloud was swept along by this
+incomparable hurricane it showed its presence in the most glorious
+manner by decking the sun and the moon in hues of unaccustomed
+splendor and beauty.  The blue color in the sky under ordinary
+circumstances is due to particles in the air, and when the ordinary
+motes of the sunbeam were reinforced by the introduction of the
+myriads of motes produced by Krakatoa even the sun itself sometimes
+showed a blue tint.  Thus the progress of the great dust-cloud was
+traced out by the extraordinary sky effects it produced, and from
+the progress of the dust-cloud we inferred the movements of the
+invisible air current which carried it along.  Nor need it be
+thought that the quantity of material projected from Krakatoa
+should have been inadequate to produce effects of this world-wide
+description.  Imagine that the material which was blown to the
+winds of heaven by the supreme convulsion of Krakatoa could be all
+recovered and swept into one vast heap.  Imagine that the heap were
+to have its bulk measured by a vessel consisting of a cube one mile
+long, one mile broad and one mile deep; it has been estimated that
+even this prodigious vessel would have to be filled to the brim at
+least ten times before all the products of Krakatoa had been
+measured."
+
+It is not specially to the quantity of material ejected from
+Krakatoa that it owes its reputation.  Great as it was, it has been
+much surpassed.  Professor Judd says that the great eruptions of
+Papapandayang, in Java, in 1772, of Skaptur Jokull, in Iceland, in
+1783, and of Tamboro, in Sumbawa, in 1815, were marked by the
+extrusion of much larger quantities of material.  The special
+feature of the Krakatoa eruption was its extreme violence, which
+flung volcanic dust to a height probably never before attained, and
+produced sea and air waves of an intensity unparalleled in the
+records of volcanic action.  Judd thinks this was due to the
+situation of the crater, and the possible inflow through fissures
+of a great volume of sea water to the interior lava, the result
+being the sudden production of an enormous volume of steam.
+
+
+EXTRAORDINARY RED SUNSETS
+
+
+The red sunsets spoken of above were so extraordinary in character
+that a fuller description of them seems advisable.  A remarkable
+fact concerning them is the great rapidity with which they were
+disseminated to distant regions of the earth.  They appeared around
+the entire equatorial zone in a few days after the eruption, this
+doubtless being due to the great rapidity with which the volcanic
+dust was carried by the upper air current.  They were seen at
+Rodriguez, 3,000 miles away, on August 28, and within a week in
+every part of the torrid zone.  From this zone they spread north
+and south with less rapidity.  Their first appearance in Australia
+was on September 15th, and at the Cape of Good Hope on the 20th.
+On the latter day they were observed in California and the Southern
+United States.  They were first seen in England on November 9th.
+Elsewhere in Europe and the United States they appeared from
+November 20th to 30th.
+
+The effect lasted in some instances as long as an hour and three-
+quarters after sunset.  In India the sun and skies assumed a
+greenish hue, and there was much curiosity regarding the cause of
+the "green sun."  Another remarkable phenomenon of this period was
+the great prevalence of rain during the succeeding winter.  This
+probably was due to the same cause; that is, to the fact of the air
+being so filled with dust; the prevailing theory in regard to rain
+being that the existence of dust in the air is necessary to its
+fall.  The vapor of the air concentrates into drops around such
+minute particles, the result being that where dust is absent rain
+cannot fall.
+
+As regards the sunsets spoken of, there are three similar instances
+on record.  The first of these was in the year 526, when a dry fog
+covered the Roman Empire with a red haze.  Nothing further is known
+concerning it.  The other instances were in the years 1783 and
+1831.  The former of these has been traced to the great eruption of
+Skaptur Jokull in that year.  It lasted for several months as a
+pale blue haze, and occasioned so much obscurity that the sun was
+only visible when twelve degrees above the horizon, and then it had
+a blood-red appearance.  Violent thunderstorms were associated with
+it, thus assimilating it with that of 1883.  Alike in 1783 and 1831
+there was a pearly, phosphorescent gleam in the atmosphere, by
+which small print could be read at midnight.  We know nothing
+regarding the meteorological conditions of 1831.
+
+The red sunsets of 1883 were remarkable for their long persistence.
+They were observed in the autumn of 1884 with almost their original
+brilliancy, and they were still visible in 1885, being seen at
+intervals, as if the dust was then distributed in patches, and
+driven about by the winds.  In fact, similar sunsets were
+occasionally visible for several years afterwards.  These may well
+have been due to the same cause, when we consider with what extreme
+slowness very fine dust makes its way through the air, and how much
+it may be affected by the winds.
+
+
+THE RED SUNSETS DESCRIBED
+
+
+One writer describes the appearance of these sunsets in the
+following terms: "Immediately after sunset a patch of white light
+appeared ten or fifteen degrees above the horizon, and shone for
+ten minutes with a pearly lustre.  Beneath it a layer of bright red
+rested on the horizon, melting upward into orange, and this passed
+into yellow light, which spread around the lucid spot.  Next the
+white light grew of a rosy tint, and soon became an intense rose
+hue.  A vivid golden oriole yellow strip divided it from the red
+fringe below and the rose red above."  This description, although
+exaggerated, represents the general conditions of the phenomenon.
+
+On October 20th, 1884, the author observed the sunset effect as
+follows: "Immediately after the sun had set, a broad cone of
+silvery lustre rested upon a horizon of smoky pink.  After fifteen
+minutes the white became rose color above and yellowish below,
+deepening to lemon color, and finally into reddish tint, while the
+rose faded out.  The whole cone gradually sank and died away in the
+brownish red flush on the horizon, more than an hour after sunset."
+The time of duration varied, since, on the succeeding evening, it
+lasted only a half-hour.  These sunset effects, if we can justly
+attribute them all to the Krakatoa eruption, were extraordinary not
+alone for their intensity and beauty but for their extended
+duration, the influence of this remarkable volcanic outbreak being
+visible for several years after the event.
+
+Though no doubt is entertained concerning the cause of the red
+sunset effects of 1783 and 1883, that of 1831 is not so readily
+explained, there having been no known volcanic explosion of great
+intensity in that year.  But in view of the fact that volcanoes
+exist in unvisited parts of the earth, some of which may have been
+at work unknown to scientific man, this difficulty is not
+insuperable.  Possibly Mounts Erebus or Terror, the burning
+mountains of the Antarctic zone, may, unseen by man, have prepared
+for civilized lands this grand spectacular effect of Nature's
+doings.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+Mount Pelee and its Harvest of Death.
+
+
+St. Pierre, the principal city of the French island of Martinique,
+in the West Indies, lies for the length of about a mile along the
+island coast, with high cliffs hemming it in, its houses climbing
+the slope, tier upon tier.  At one place where a river breaks
+through the cliffs, the city creeps further up towards the
+mountains.  As seen from the bay, its appearance is picturesque and
+charming, with the soft tints of its tiles, the grey of its walls,
+the clumps of verdure in its midst, and the wall of green in the
+rear.  Seen from its streets this beauty disappears, and the chief
+attraction of the town is gone.
+
+Back from the three miles of hills which sweep in an arc round the
+town, is the noble Montagne Pelee lying several miles to the north
+of the city, a mass of dark rock some four thousand feet high, with
+jagged outline, and cleft with gorges and ravines, down which flow
+numerous streams, gushing from the crater lake of the great
+volcano.
+
+Though known to be a volcano, it was looked upon as practically
+extinct, though as late as August, 1856, it had been in eruption.
+No lava at that time came from its crater, but it hurled out great
+quantities of ashes and mud, with strong sulphurous odor.  Then it
+went to rest again, and slept till 1902.
+
+The people had long ceased to fear it.  No one expected that grand
+old Mount Pelee, the slumbering (so it was thought) tranquil old
+hill, would ever spurt forth fire and death.  This was entirely
+unlooked for.  Mont Pelee was regarded by the natives as a sort of
+protector; they had an almost superstitious affection for it.  From
+the outskirts of the city it rose gradually, its sides grown thick
+with rich grass, and dotted here and there with spreading shrubbery
+and drooping trees.  There was no pleasanter outing for an
+afternoon than a journey up the green, velvet-like sides of the
+towering mountain and a view of the quaint, picturesque city
+slumbering at its base.
+
+
+A PEACEFUL SCENE
+
+
+There were no rocky cliffs, no crags, no protruding boulders.  The
+mountain was peace itself.  It seemed to promise perpetual
+protection.  The poetic natives relied upon it to keep back storms
+from the land and frighten, with its stern brow, the tempests from
+the sea.  They pointed to it with profoundest pride as one of the
+most beautiful mountains in the world.
+
+Children played in its bowers and arbors; families picnicked there
+day after day during the balmy weather; hundreds of tourists
+ascended to the summit and looked with pleasure at the beautiful
+crystal lake which sparkled and glinted in the sunshine.  Mont
+Pelee was the place of enjoyment of the people of St. Pierre.  I
+can hear the placid natives say: "Old Father Pelee is our
+protector--not our destroyer."
+
+Not until two weeks before the eruption did the slumbering mountain
+show signs of waking to death and disaster.  On the 23d of April it
+first displayed symptoms of internal disquiet.  A great column of
+smoke began to rise from it, and was accompanied from time to time
+by showers of ashes and cinders.
+
+Despite these signals, there was nothing until Monday, May 5th, to
+indicate actual danger.  On that day a stream of smoking mud and
+lava burst through the top of the crater and plunged into the
+valley of the River Blanche, overwhelming the Guerin sugar works
+and killing twenty-three workmen and the son of the proprietor.
+Mr. Guerin's was one of the largest sugar works on the island; its
+destruction entailed a heavy loss.  The mud which overwhelmed it
+followed the beds of streams towards the north of the island.
+
+The alarm in the city was great, but it was somewhat allayed by the
+report of an expert commission appointed by the Governor, which
+decided that the eruption was normal and that the city was in no
+peril.  To further allay the excitement, the Governor, with several
+scientists, took up his residence in St. Pierre.  He could not
+restrain the people by force, but the moral effect of his presence
+and the decision of the scientists had a similar disastrous result.
+
+
+A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION BY A SUFFERER.
+
+
+The existing state of affairs during these few waiting days is so
+graphically given in a letter from Mrs. Thomas T. Prentis, wife of
+the United States Consul at St. Pierre, to her sister in Melrose, a
+suburban city of Boston, that we quote it here:
+
+"My Dear Sister: This morning the whole population of the city is
+on the alert and every eye is directed toward Mont Pelee, an
+extinct volcano.  Everybody is afraid that the volcano has taken
+into its heart to burst forth and destroy the whole island.
+
+"Fifty years ago Mont Pelee burst forth with terrific force and
+destroyed everything within a radius of several miles.  For several
+days the mountain has been bursting forth in flame and immense
+quantities of lava are flowing down its sides.
+
+"All the inhabitants are going up to see it.  There is not a horse
+to be had on the island, those belonging to the natives being kept
+in readiness to leave at a moment's notice.
+
+"Last Wednesday, which was April 23d, I was in my room with little
+Christine, and we heard three distinct shocks.  They were so great
+that we supposed at first that there was some one at the door, and
+Christine went and found no one there.  The first report was very
+loud, and the second and third were so great that dishes were
+thrown from the shelves and the house was rocked.
+
+"We can see Mont Pelee from the rear windows of our house, and
+although it is fully four miles away, we can hear the roar of the
+fire and lava issuing from it.
+
+"The city is covered with ashes and clouds of smoke have been over
+our heads for the last five days.  The smell of sulphur is so
+strong that horses on the streets stop and snort, and some of them
+are obliged to give up, drop in their harness and die from
+suffocation.  Many of the people are obliged to wear wet
+handkerchiefs over their faces to protect them from the fumes of
+sulphur.
+
+"My husband assures me that there is no immediate danger, and when
+there is the least particle of danger we will leave the place.
+There is an American schooner, the R. F. Morse, in the harbor, and
+she will remain here for at least two weeks.  If the volcano
+becomes very bad we shall embark at once and go out to sea.  The
+papers in this city are asking if we are going to experience
+another earthquake similar to that which struck here some fifty
+years ago."
+
+
+THE FATEFUL EIGHTH OF MAY
+
+
+The writer of this letter and her husband, Consul Prentis, trusted
+Mont Pelee too long.  They perished, with all the inhabitants of
+the city, in a deadly flood of fire and ashes that descended on the
+devoted place on the fateful morning of Thursday, May 8th.  Only
+for the few who were rescued from the ships in the harbor there
+would be scarcely a living soul to tell that dread story of ruin
+and death.  The most graphic accounts are those given by rescued
+officers of the Roraima, one of the fleet of the Quebec Steamship
+Co., trading with the West Indies.  This vessel had left the Island
+of Dominica for Martinique at midnight of Wednesday, and reached
+St. Pierre about 7 o'clock Thursday morning.  The greatest
+difficulty was experienced in getting into port, the air being
+thick with falling ashes and the darkness intense.  The ship had to
+grope its way to the anchorage.  Appalling sounds were issuing from
+the mountain behind the town, which was shrouded in darkness.  The
+ashes were falling thickly on the steamer's deck, where the
+passengers and others were gazing at the town, some being engaged
+in photographing the scene.
+
+The best way in which we can describe a scene of which few lived to
+tell the story, is to give the narratives of a number of the
+survivors.  From their several stories a coherent idea of the
+terrible scene can be formed.  From the various accounts given of
+the terrible explosion by officers of the Roraima, we select as a
+first example the following description by Assistant Purser
+Thompson:
+
+
+A TALE OF SUDDEN RUIN
+
+
+"I saw St. Pierre destroyed.  It was blotted out by one great flash
+of fire.  Nearly 40,000 persons were all killed at once.  Out of
+eighteen vessels lying in the roads only one, the British steamship
+Roddam, escaped, and she, I hear, lost more than half on board.  It
+was a dying crew that took her out.
+
+"Our boat, the Roraima, of the Quebec Line, arrived at St. Pierre
+early Thursday morning.  For hours before we entered the roadstead
+we could see flames and smoke rising from Mont Pelee.  No one on
+board had any idea of danger.  Captain G. T. Muggah was on the
+bridge, and all hands got on deck to see the show.
+
+"The spectacle was magnificent.  As we approached St. Pierre we
+could distinguish the rolling and leaping of the red flames that
+belched from the mountain in huge volumes and gushed high in to the
+sky.  Enormous clouds of black smoke hung over the volcano.
+
+"When we anchored at St. Pierre I noticed the cable steamship
+Grappler, the Roddam, three or four American schooners and a number
+of Italian and Norwegian barks.  The flames were then spurting
+straight up in the air, now and then waving to one side or the
+other for a moment and again leaping suddenly higher up.
+
+"There was a constant muffled roar.  It was like the biggest oil
+refinery in the world burning up on the mountain top.  There was a
+tremendous explosion about 7.45 o'clock, soon after we got in.  The
+mountain was blown to pieces.  There was no warning.  The side of
+the volcano was ripped out, and there was hurled straight toward us
+a solid wall of flame.  It sounded like thousands of cannon.
+
+"The wave of fire was on us and over us like a lightning flash.  It
+was like a hurricane of fire.  I saw it strike the cable steamship
+Grappler broadside on and capsize her.  From end to end she burst
+into flames and then sank.  The fire rolled in mass straight down
+upon St. Pierre and the shipping.  The town vanished before our
+eyes and the air grew stifling hot, and we were in the thick of it.
+
+"Wherever the mass of fire struck the sea the water boiled and sent
+up vast clouds of steam.  The sea was torn into huge whirlpools
+that careened toward the open sea.
+
+"One of these horrible hot whirlpools swung under the Roraima and
+pulled her down on her beam ends with the suction.  She careened
+way over to port, and then the fire hurricane from the volcano
+smashed her, and over she went on the opposite side.  The fire wave
+swept off the masts and smokestack as if they were cut with a
+knife.
+
+
+HEAT CAUSED EXPLOSIONS
+
+
+"Captain Muggah was the only one on deck not killed outright.  He
+was caught by the fire wave and terribly burned.  He yelled to get
+up the anchor, but, before two fathoms were heaved in the Roraima
+was almost upset by the boiling whirlpool, and the fire wave had
+thrown her down on her beam ends to starboard.  Captain Muggah was
+overcome by the flames.  He fell unconscious from the bridge and
+toppled overboard.
+
+"The blast of fire from the volcano lasted only a few minutes.  It
+shriveled and set fire to everything it touched.  Thousands of
+casks of rum were stored in St. Pierre, and these were exploded by
+the terrific heat.  The burning rum ran in streams down every
+street and out to the sea.  This blazing rum set fire to the
+Roraima several times.  Before the volcano burst the landings of
+St. Pierre were crowded with people.  After the explosion not one
+living being was seen on land.  Only twenty-five of those on the
+Roraima out of sixty-eight were left after the first flash.
+
+"The French cruiser Suchet came in and took us off at 2 P. M.  She
+remained nearby, helping all she could, until 5 o'clock, then went
+to Fort de France with all the people she had rescued.  At that
+time it looked as if the entire north end of the island was on
+fire."
+
+C. C. Evans, of Montreal, and John G. Morris, of New York, who were
+among those rescued, say the vessel arrived at 6 o'clock.  As eight
+bells were struck a frightful explosion was heard up the mountain.
+A cloud of fire, toppling and roaring, swept with lightning speed
+down the mountain side and over the town and bay.  The Roraima was
+nearly sunk, and caught fire at once.
+
+"I can never forget the horrid, fiery, choking whirlwind which
+enveloped me," said Mr. Evans.  "Mr. Morris and I rushed below.  We
+are not very badly burned, not so bad as most of them.  When the
+fire came we were going to our posts (we are engineers) to weigh
+anchor and get out.  When we came up we found the ship afire aft,
+and fought it forward until 3 o'clock, when the Suchet came to our
+rescue.  We were then building a raft."
+
+"Ben" Benson, the carpenter of the Roraima, said: "I was on deck,
+amidships, when I heard an explosion.  The captain ordered me to up
+anchor.  I got to the windlass, but when the fire came I went into
+the forecastle and got my 'duds.'  When I came out I talked with
+Captain Muggah, Mr. Scott, the first officer and others.  They had
+been on the bridge.  The captain was horribly burned.  He had
+inhaled flames and wanted to jump into the sea.  I tried to make
+him take a life-preserver.  The captain, who was undressed, jumped
+overboard and hung on to a line for a while.  Then he disappeared."
+
+
+THE COOPER'S STORY.
+
+
+James Taylor, a cooper employed on the Roraima, gives the following
+account of his experience of the disaster:
+
+"Hearing a tremendous report and seeing the ashes falling thicker,
+I dived into a room, dragging with me Samuel Thomas, a gangway man
+and fellow countryman, shutting the door tightly.  Shortly after I
+heard a voice, which I recognized as that of the chief mate, Mr.
+Scott.  Opening the door with great caution, I drew him in.  The
+nose of Thomas was burned by the intense heat.
+
+"We three and Thompson, the assistant purser, out of sixty-eight
+souls on board, were the only persons who escaped practically
+uninjured.  The heat being unbearable, I emerged in a few moments,
+and the scene that presented itself to my eyes baffles description.
+All around on the deck were the dead and dying covered with boiling
+mud.  There they lay, men, women and little children, and the
+appeals of the latter for water were heart-rending.  When water was
+given them they could not swallow it, owing to their throats being
+filled with ashes or burnt with the heated air.
+
+"The ship was burning aft, and I jumped overboard, the sea being
+intensely hot.  I was at once swept seaward by a tidal wave, but,
+the sea receding a considerable distance, the return wave washed me
+against an upturned sloop to which I clung.  I was joined by a man
+so dreadfully burned and disfigured as to be unrecognizable.
+Afterwards I found he was the captain of the Roraima, Captain
+Muggah.  He was in dreadful agony, begging piteously to be put on
+board his ship.
+
+"Picking up some wreckage which contained bedding and a tool chest,
+I, with the help of five others who had joined me on the wreck,
+constructed a rude raft, on which we placed the captain.  Then,
+seeing an upturned boat, I asked one of the five, a native of
+Martinique, to swim and fetch it.  Instead of returning to us, he
+picked up two of his countrymen and went away in the direction of
+Fort de France.  Seeing the Roddam, which arrived in port shortly
+after we anchored, making for the Roraima, I said good-bye to the
+captain and swam back to the Roraima.
+
+"The Roddam, however, burst into flames and put to sea.  I reached
+the Roraima at about half-past 2, and was afterwards taken off by a
+boat from the French warship Suchet.  Twenty-four others with
+myself were taken on to Fort de France.  Three of these died before
+reaching port.  A number of others have since died."
+
+Samuel Thomas, the gangway man, whose life was saved by the
+forethought of Taylor, says that the scene on the burning ship was
+awful.  The groans and cries of the dying, for whom nothing could
+be done, were horrible.  He describes a woman as being burned to
+death with a living babe in her arms.  He says that it seemed as if
+the whole world was afire.
+
+
+CONSUL AYME'S STATEMENT
+
+
+The inflammable material in the forepart of the ship that would
+have ignited that part of the vessel was thrown overboard by him
+and the other two uninjured men.  The Grappler, the telegraph
+company's ship, was seen opposite the Usine Guerin, and disappeared
+as if blown up by a submarine explosion.  The captain's body was
+subsequently found by a boat from the Suchet.
+
+Consul Ayme, of Guadeloupe, who, as already stated, had hastened to
+Fort de France on hearing of the terrible event, tells the story of
+the disaster in the following words:
+
+"Thursday morning the inhabitants of the city awoke to find heavy
+clouds shrouding Mont Pelee crater.  All day Wednesday horrid
+detonations had been heard.  These were echoed from St. Thomas on
+the north to Barbados on the south.  The cannonading ceased on
+Wednesday night, and fine ashes fell like rain on St. Pierre.  The
+inhabitants were alarmed, but Governor Mouttet, who had arrived at
+St. Pierre the evening before, did everything possible to allay the
+panic.
+
+"The British steamer Roraima reached St. Pierre on Thursday with
+ten passengers, among whom were Mrs. Stokes and her three children,
+and Mrs. H. J. Ince.  They were watching the rain of ashes, when,
+with a frightful roar and terrific electric discharges, a cyclone
+of fire, mud and steam swept down from the crater over the town and
+bay, sweeping all before it and destroying the fleet of vessels at
+anchor off the shore.  There the accounts of the catastrophe so far
+obtainable cease.  Thirty thousand corpses are strewn about, buried
+in the ruins of St. Pierre, or else floating, gnawed by sharks, in
+the surrounding seas.  Twenty-eight charred, half-dead human beings
+were brought here.  Sixteen of them are already dead, and only four
+of the whole number are expected to recover."
+
+
+A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE ON THE "RORAIMA"
+
+
+Margaret Stokes, the 9 year old daughter of the late Clement
+Stokes, of New York, who, with her mother, a brother aged 4 and a
+sister aged 3 years, was on the ill-fated steamer Roraima, was
+saved from that vessel, but is not expected to live.  Her nurse,
+Clara King, tells the following story of her experience:
+
+She says she was in her stateroom, when the steward of the Roraima
+called out to her:
+
+"Look at Mont Pelee."
+
+She went on deck and saw a vast mass of black cloud coming down
+from the volcano.  The steward ordered her to return to the saloon,
+saying, "It is coming."
+
+Miss King then rushed to the saloon.  She says she experienced a
+feeling of suffocation, which was followed by intense heat.  The
+afterpart of the Roraima broke out in flames.  Ben Benson, the
+carpenter of the Roraima, severely burned, assisted Miss King and
+Margaret Stokes to escape.  With the help of Mr. Scott, the first
+mate of the Roraima, he constructed a raft, with life preservers.
+Upon this Miss King and Margaret were placed.
+
+While this was being done Margaret's little brother died.  Mate
+Scott brought the child water at great personal danger, but it was
+unavailing.  Shortly after the death of the little boy Mrs. Stokes
+succumbed.  Margaret and Miss King eventually got away on the raft,
+and were picked up by the steamer Korona.  Mate Scott also escaped.
+Miss King did not sustain serious injuries.  She covered the face
+of Margaret with her dress, but still the child was probably
+fatally burned.
+
+The only woman known at that time to have survived the disaster at
+St. Pierre was a negress named Fillotte.  She was found in a cellar
+Saturday afternoon, where she had been for three days.  She was
+still alive, but fearfully burned from head to toes.  She died
+afterward in the hospital.
+
+
+CAPTAIN FREEMAN'S THRILLING ACCOUNT
+
+
+Of the vessels in the harbor of St. Pierre on the fateful morning,
+only one, the British steamer Roddam, escaped, and that with a crew
+of whom few reached the open sea alive.  Those who did escape were
+terribly injured.  Captain Freeman, of this vessel, tells what he
+experienced in the following thrilling language:
+
+"St. Lucia, British West Indies, May 11.--The steamer Roddam, of
+which I am captain, left St. Lucia at midnight of May 7, and was
+off St. Pierre, Martinique, at 6 o'clock on the morning of the 8th.
+I noticed that the volcano, Mont Pelee, was smoking, and crept
+slowly in toward the bay, finding there among others the steamer
+Roraima, the telegraph repairing steamer Grappler and four sailing
+vessels.  I went to anchorage between 7 and 8 and had hardly moored
+when the side of the volcano opened out with a terrible explosion.
+A wall of fire swept over the town and the bay.  The Roddam was
+struck broadside by the burning mass.  The shock to the ship was
+terrible, nearly capsizing her.
+
+
+AWFUL RESULTS
+
+
+"Hearing the awful report of the explosion and seeing the great
+wall of flames approaching the steamer, those on deck sought
+shelter wherever it was possible, jumping into the cabin, the
+forecastle and even into the hold.  I was in the chart room, but
+the burning embers were borne by so swift a movement of the air
+that they were swept in through the door and port holes,
+suffocating and scorching me badly.  I was terribly burned by these
+embers about the face and hands, but managed to reach the deck.
+Then, as soon as it was possible, I mustered the few survivors who
+seemed able to move, ordered them to slip the anchor, leaped for
+the bridge and ran the engine for full speed astern.  The second
+and the third engineer and a fireman were on watch below and so
+escaped injury.  They did their part in the attempt to escape, but
+the men on deck could not work the steering gear because it was
+jammed by the debris from the volcano.  We accordingly went ahead
+and astern until the gear was free, but in this running backward
+and forward it was two hours after the first shock before we were
+clear of the bay.
+
+"One of the most terrifying conditions was that, the atmosphere
+being charged with ashes, it was totally dark.  The sun was
+completely obscured, and the air was only illuminated by the flames
+from the volcano and those of the burning town and shipping.  It
+seems small to say that the scene was terrifying in the extreme.
+As we backed out we passed close to the Roraima, which was one mass
+of blaze.  The steam was rushing from the engine room, and the
+screams of those on board were terrible to hear.  The cries for
+help were all in vain, for I could do nothing but save my own ship.
+When I last saw the Roraima she was settling down by the stern.
+That was about 10 o'clock in the morning.
+
+"When the Roddam was safely out of the harbor of St. Pierre, with
+its desolations and horrors, I made for St. Lucia.  Arriving there,
+and when the ship was safe, I mustered the survivors as well as I
+was able and searched for the dead and injured.  Some I found in
+the saloon where they had vainly sought for safety, but the cabins
+were full of burning embers that had blown in through the port
+holes.  Through these the fire swept as through funnels and burned
+the victims where they lay or stood, leaving a circular imprint of
+scorched and burned flesh.  I brought ten on deck who were thus
+burned; two of them were dead, the others survived, although in a
+dreadful state of torture from their burns.  Their screams of agony
+were heartrending.  Out of a total of twenty-three on board the
+Roddam, which includes the captain and the crew, ten are dead and
+several are in the hospital.  My first and second mates, my chief
+engineer and my supercargo, Campbell by name, were killed.  The
+ship was covered from stem to stern with tons of powdered lava,
+which retained its heat for hours after it had fallen.  In many
+cases it was practically incandescent, and to move about the deck
+in this burning mass was not only difficult but absolutely
+perilous.  I am only now able to begin thoroughly to clear and
+search the ship for any damage done by this volcanic rain, and to
+see if there are any corpses in out-of-the-way places.  For
+instance, this morning, I found one body in the peak of the
+forecastle.  The body was horribly burned and the sailor had
+evidently crept in there in his agony to die.
+
+"On the arrival of the Roddam at St. Lucia the ship presented an
+appalling appearance.  Dead and calcined bodies lay about the deck,
+which was also crowded with injured helpless and suffering people.
+Prompt assistance was rendered to the injured by the authorities
+here and my poor, tortured men were taken to the hospital.  The
+dead were buried.  I have omitted to mention that out of twenty-one
+black laborers that I brought from Grenada to help in stevedoring,
+only six survived.  Most of the others threw themselves overboard
+to escape a dreadful fate, but they met a worse one, for it is an
+actual fact that the water around the ship was literally at a
+boiling heat.  The escape of my vessel was miraculous.  The
+woodwork of the cabins and bridge and everything inflammable on
+deck were constantly igniting, and it was with great difficulty
+that we few survivors managed to keep the flames down.  My ropes,
+awnings, tarpaulins were completely burned up.
+
+"I witnessed the entire destruction of St. Pierre.  The flames
+enveloped the town in every quarter with such rapidity that it was
+impossible that any person could be saved.  As I have said, the day
+was suddenly turned to night, but I could distinguish by the light
+of the burning town people distractedly running about on the beach.
+The burning buildings stood out from the surrounding darkness like
+black shadows.  All this time the mountain was roaring and shaking,
+and in the intervals between these terrifying sounds I could hear
+the cries of despair and agony from the thousands who were
+perishing.  These cries added to the terror of the scene, but it is
+impossible to describe its horror or the dreadful sensations it
+produced.  It was like witnessing the end of the world.
+
+"Let me add that, after the first shock was over, the survivors of
+the crew rendered willing help to navigate the ship to this port.
+Mr. Plissoneau, our agent in Martinique, happening to be on board,
+was saved, and I really believe that he is the only survivor of St.
+Pierre.  As it is, he is seriously burned on the hands and face.
+
+"FREEMAN,
+
+"Master British Steamship Roddam."
+
+
+THE "ETONA" PASSES ST. PIERRE
+
+
+The British steamer Etona, of the Norton Line, stopped at St. Lucia
+to coal on May 10th.  Captain Cantell there visited the Roddam and
+had an interview with Captain Freeman.  On the 11th the Elona put
+to sea again, passing St. Pierre in the afternoon.  We subjoin her
+captain's story:
+
+"The weather was clear and we had a fine view, but the old outlines
+of St. Pierre were not recognizable.  Everything was a mass of blue
+lava, and the formation of the land itself seemed to have changed.
+When we were about eight miles off the northern end of the island
+Mount Pelee began to belch a second time.  Clouds of smoke and lava
+shot into the air and spread over all the sea, darkening the sun.
+Our decks in a few minutes were covered with a substance that
+looked like sand dyed a bluish tint, and which smelled like
+phosphorus.  For all that the day was clear, there was little to be
+seen satisfactorily.  Over the island there hung a blue haze.  It
+seemed to me that the formation, the topography, of the island was
+altered.
+
+"Everything seemed to be covered with a blue dust, such as had
+fallen aboard us every day since we had been within the affected
+region.  It was blue lava dust.  For more than an hour we scanned
+the coast with our glasses, now and then discovering something that
+looked like a ruined hamlet or collection of buildings.  There was
+no life visible.  Suddenly we realized that we might have to fight
+for our lives as the Roddam's people had done.
+
+"We were about four miles off the northern end of the island when
+suddenly there shot up in the air to a tremendous height a column
+of smoke.  The sky darkened and the smoke seemed to swirl down upon
+us.  In fact, it spread all around, darkening the atmosphere as far
+as we could see.  I called Chief Engineer Farrish to the deck.
+
+"'Do you see that over there?' I asked, pointing to the eruption,
+for it was the second eruption of Mont Pelee.  He saw it all right.
+Captain Freeman's story was fresh in my mind.
+
+"'Well, Farrish, rush your engines as they have never been rushed
+before,' I said to him.  He went below, and soon we began to burn
+coal and pile up the feathers in our forefoot.
+
+"I was on watch with Second Officer Gibbs.  At once we began to
+furl awnings and make secure against fire.  The crew were all
+showing an anxious spirit, and everybody on board, including the
+four passengers, were serious and apprehensive.
+
+"We began to cut through the water at almost twelve knots.
+Ordinarily we make ten knots.  We could see no more of the land
+contour, but everything seemed to be enveloped in a great cloud.
+There was no fire visible, but the lava dust rained down upon us
+steadily.  In less than an hour there were two inches of it upon
+our deck.
+
+"The air smelled like phosphorus.  No one dared to look up to try
+to locate the sun, because one's eyes would fill with lava dust.
+Some of the blue lava dust is sticking to our mast yet, although we
+have swabbed decks and rigging again and again to be clear of it.
+
+"After a little more than an hour's fast running we saw daylight
+ahead and began to breathe easier.  If I had not talked with
+Captain Freeman and heard from him just how the black swirl of wind
+and fire rolled down upon him, I would not have been so
+apprehensive, but would have thought that the darkness and cloud
+that came down upon us meant just an unusually heavy squall."
+
+
+CHIEF ENGINEER FARRISH'S STORY
+
+
+"The Etona's run from Montevideo was a fast one--I think a record
+breaker.  We were 22 days and 21 hours from port to port.  Off
+Martinique I stared at the coast for about an hour, and then went
+below.  The blue lava that covered everything faded into the haze
+that hung over the island so that nothing was distinctly visible.
+Through my glass I discovered a stream of lava, though.  It
+stretched down the mountain side, and seemed to be flowing into the
+sea.  It was not clearly and distinctly visible, however.
+
+"About 3 o'clock I went below to take forty winks.  I had been in
+my berth only a few minutes when the steward told me the captain
+wanted me on the bridge.
+
+"'Do you see that, Farrish?' he asked, pointing at the land.  An
+outburst of smoke seemed to be sweeping down upon us.  It made me
+think of the Roddam's experience.  Smoke and dust closed in about
+us, shutting out the sunlight, and precipitating a fall of lava on
+our decks.
+
+"'Go below and drive her,' said the captain, and I didn't lose any
+time, I can tell you.  We burned coal as though it didn't cost a
+cent.  The safety valve was jumping every second, even though we
+were making twelve knots an hour.  For two hours we kept up the
+pace, and then, running into clear daylight, let the engines slow
+down and we all cheered up a bit."
+
+
+CAPTAIN CANTELL VISITS THE "RODDAM"
+
+
+Captain Cantell went on board the Roddam, whose frightful condition
+he thus describes:
+
+"At St. Lucia, on May 11th, I went on board the British steamship
+Roddam, which had escaped from the terrible volcanic eruption at
+Martinique two days before.  The state of the ship was enough to
+show that those on board must have undergone an awful experience.
+
+"The Roddam was covered with a mass of fine bluish gray dust or
+ashes of cement-like appearance.  In some parts it lay two feet
+deep on the decks.  This matter had fallen in a red-hot state all
+over the steamer, setting fire to everything it struck that was
+burnable, and, when it fell on the men on board, burning off limbs
+and large pieces of flesh.  This was shown by finding portions of
+human flesh when the decks were cleared of the debris.  The
+rigging, ropes, tarpaulins, sails, awnings, etc., were charred or
+burned, and most of the upper stanchions and spars were swept
+overboard or destroyed by fire.  Skylights were smashed and cabins
+were filled with volcanic dust.  The scene of ruin was deplorable.
+
+"The captain, though suffering the greatest agony, succeeded in
+navigating his vessel safely to the port of Castries, St. Lucia,
+with eighteen dead bodies on the deck and human limbs scattered
+about.  A sailor stood by constantly wiping the captain's injured
+eyes.
+
+"I think the performance of the Roddam's captain was most
+wonderful, and the more so when I saw his pitiful condition.  I do
+not understand how he kept up, yet when the steamer arrived at St.
+Lucia and medical assistance was procured, this brave man asked the
+doctors to attend to the others first and refused to be treated
+until this was done.
+
+"My interview with the captain brought out this account.  I left
+him in good spirits and receiving every comfort.  The sight of his
+face would frighten anyone not prepared to see it."
+
+
+THE VIVID ACCOUNT OF M. ALBERT
+
+
+To the accounts given by the survivors of the Roraima and the
+officers of the Etona, it will be well to add the following graphic
+story told by M. Albert, a planter of the island, the owner of an
+estate situated only a mile to the northeast of the burning crater
+of Mont Pelee.  His escape from death had in it something of the
+marvellous.  He says:
+
+"Mont Pelee had given warning of the destruction that was to come,
+but we, who had looked upon the volcano as harmless, did not
+believe that it would do more than spout fire and steam, as it had
+done on other occasions.  It was a little before eight o'clock on
+the morning of May 8 that the end came.  I was in one of the fields
+of my estate when the ground trembled under my feet, not as it does
+when the earth quakes, but as though a terrible struggle was going
+on within the mountain.  A terror came upon me, but I could not
+explain my fear.
+
+"As I stood still Mont Pelee seemed to shudder, and a moaning sound
+issued from its crater.  It was quite dark, the sun being obscured
+by ashes and fine volcanic dust.  The air was dead about me, so
+dead that the floating dust seemingly was not disturbed.  Then
+there was a rending, crashing, grinding noise, which I can only
+describe as sounding as though every bit of machinery in the world
+had suddenly broken down.  It was deafening, and the flash of light
+that accompanied it was blinding, more so than any lightning I have
+ever seen.
+
+"It was like a terrible hurricane, and where a fraction of a second
+before there had been a perfect calm, I felt myself drawn into a
+vortex and I had to brace myself firmly.  It was like a great
+express train rushing by, and I was drawn by its force.  The
+mysterious force levelled a row of strong trees, tearing them up by
+the roots and leaving bare a space of ground fifteen yards wide and
+more than one hundred yards long.  Transfixed I stood, not knowing
+in what direction to flee.  I looked toward Mont Pelee, and above
+its apex there appeared a great black cloud which reached high in
+the air.  It literally fell upon the city of St. Pierre.  It moved
+with a rapidity that made it impossible for anything to escape it.
+From the cloud came explosions that sounded as though all of the
+navies of the world were in titanic combat.  Lightning played in
+and out in broad forks, the result being that intense darkness was
+followed by light that seemed to be of magnifying power.
+
+"That St. Pierre was doomed I knew, but I was prevented from seeing
+the destruction by a spur of the hill that shut off the view of the
+city.  It is impossible for me to tell how long I stood there
+inert.  Probably it was only a few seconds, but so vivid were my
+impressions that it now seems as though I stood as a spectator for
+many minutes.  When I recovered possession of my senses I ran to my
+house and collected the members of the family, all of whom were
+panic stricken.  I hurried them to the seashore, where we boarded a
+small steamship, in which we made the trip in safety to Fort de
+France.
+
+"I know that there was no flame in the first wave that was sent
+down upon St. Pierre.  It was a heavy gas, like firedamp, and it
+must have asphyxiated the inhabitants before they were touched by
+the fire, which quickly followed.  As we drew out to sea in the
+small steamship, Mont Pelee was in the throes of a terrible
+convulsion.  New craters seemed to be opening all about the summit
+and lava was flowing in broad streams in every direction.  My
+estate was ruined while we were still in sight of it.  Many women
+who lived in St. Pierre escaped only to know that they were left
+widowed and childless.  This is because many of the wealthier men
+sent their wives away, while they remained in St. Pierre to attend
+to their business affairs."
+
+
+WHAT HAPPENED ON THE "HORACE"
+
+
+The British steamer Horace experienced the effect of the explosion
+when farther from land.  After touching at Barbados, she reached
+the vicinity of Martinique on May 9th, her decks being covered with
+several inches of dust when she was a hundred and twenty-five miles
+distant.  We quote engineer Anderson's story:
+
+"On the afternoon of May 8 (Thursday) we noticed a peculiar haze in
+the direction of Martinique.  The air seemed heavy and oppressive.
+The weather conditions were not at all unlike those which precede
+the great West Indian hurricanes, but, knowing it was not the
+season of the year for them, we all remarked in the engine room
+that there must be a heavy storm approaching.
+
+"Several of the sailors, experienced deep water seamen, laughed at
+our prognostications, and informed us there would be no storm
+within the next sixty hours, and insisted that, according to all
+fo'cas'le indications, a dead calm was in sight.
+
+"So unusually peculiar were the weather conditions that we talked
+of nothing else during the evening.  That night, in the direction
+of Martinique, there was a very black sky, an unusual thing at this
+season of the year, and a storm was apparently brewing in a
+direction from which storms do not come at this season.
+
+
+GREAT FLASHES OF LIGHT
+
+
+"As the night wore on those on watch noticed what appeared to be
+great flashes of lightning in the direction of Martinique.  It
+seemed as though the ordinary conditions were reversed, and even
+the fo'cas'le prophets were unable to offer explanations.
+
+"Occasionally, over the pounding of the engines and the rush of
+water, we thought we could hear long, deep roars, not unlike the
+ending of a deep peal of thunder.  Several times we heard the
+rumble or roar, but at the time we were not certain as to exactly
+what it was, or even whether we really heard it.
+
+"There would suddenly come great flashes of light from the dark
+bank toward Martinique.  Some of them seemed to spread over a great
+area, while others appeared to spout skyward, funnel shaped.  All
+night this continued, and it was not until day came that the
+flashes disappeared.  The dark bank that covered the horizon toward
+Martinique, however, did not fade away with the breaking of day,
+and at eight in the morning of the 9th (Friday) the whole section
+of the sky in that direction seemed dark and troubled.
+
+"About nine o'clock Friday morning I was sitting on one of the
+hatches aft with some of the other engineers and officers of the
+ship, discussing the peculiar weather phenomena.  I noticed a sort
+of grit that got into my mouth from the end of the cigar I was
+smoking.
+
+"I attributed it to some rather bad coal which we had shipped
+aboard, and, turning to Chief Engineer Evans, I remarked that 'that
+coal was mighty dirty,' and he said that it was covering the ship
+with a sort of grit.  Then I noticed that grit was getting on my
+clothes, and finally some one suggested that we go forward of the
+funnels, so we would not get dirt on us.  As we went forward we met
+one or two of the sailors from the forecastle, who wanted to know
+about the dust that was falling on the ship.  Then we found that
+the grayish-looking ash was sifting all over the ship, both forward
+and aft.
+
+
+ASHES RAINED ON THE SHIP
+
+
+"Every moment the ashes rained down all over the ship, and at the
+same time grew thicker.  A few moments later, the lookout called
+down that we were running into a fog-bank dead ahead.  Fog banks in
+that section are unheard of at nine o'clock in the morning at this
+season, and we were more than a hundred miles from land, and what
+could fog and sand be doing there.
+
+"Before we knew it, we went into the fog, which proved to be a big
+dense bank of this same sand, and it rained down on us from every
+side.  Ventilators were quickly brought to their places, and later
+even the hatches were battened down.  The dust became suffocating,
+and the men at times had all they could do to keep from choking.
+What the stuff was we could not at first conjecture, or rather, we
+didn't have much time to speculate on it, for we had to get our
+ship in shape to withstand we hardly knew what.
+
+"At first we thought that the sand must have been blown from shore.
+Then we decided that if the Captain's figures were right we
+wouldn't be near enough to shore to have sand blow on us, and as we
+had just cleared Barbados, we knew that the Captain's figures had
+to be right.
+
+"Just as the storm of sand was at its height, Fourth Engineer Wild
+was nearly suffocated by it, but was easily revived.  About this
+time it became so dark that we found it necessary to start up the
+electric lights, and it was not until after we got clear from the
+fog that we turned the current off.  In the meantime they had
+burned from nine o'clock in the morning until after two in the
+afternoon.
+
+
+THE ENGINE BECAME CHOKED
+
+
+"Then there was another anxious moment shortly after nine o'clock.
+Third Engineer Rennie had been running the donkey engine, when
+suddenly it choked, and when he finally got it clear from the sand
+or ashes, he found the valves were all cut out, and then it was we
+discovered that it was not sand, but some sort of a composition
+that seemed to cut steel like emery.  Then came the danger that it
+would get into the valves of the engine and cut them out, and for
+several moments all hands scurried about and helped make the engine
+room tight, and even then the ash drifted in and kept all the
+engine room force wiping the engines clear of it.
+
+"Toward three o'clock in the afternoon of Friday we were
+practically clear of the sand, but at eleven o'clock that night we
+ran into a second bank of it, though not as bad as the first.  We
+made some experiments, and found the stuff was superior to emery
+dust.  It cut deeper and quicker, and only about half as much was
+required to do the work.  We made up our minds we would keep what
+came on board, as it was better than the emery dust and much
+cheaper, so we gathered it up.
+
+"That night there were more of the same electric phenomena toward
+Martinique, but it was not until we got into St. Lucia, where we
+saw the Roddam, that we learned of the terrible disaster at St.
+Pierre, and then we knew that our sand was lava dust."
+
+The volcanic ash which fell on the decks of the Horace was ground
+as fine as rifle powder, and was much finer than that which covered
+the decks of the Etona.
+
+Returning to the stories told by officers of the Roraima, of which
+a number have been given, it seems desirable to add here the
+narrative of Ellery S. Scott, the mate of the ruined ship, since it
+gives a vivid and striking account of his personal experience of
+the frightful disaster, with many details of interest not related
+by others.
+
+
+MATE SCOTT'S GRAPHIC STORY
+
+
+"We got to St. Pierre in the Roraima," began Mr. Scott, "at 6.30
+o'clock on Thursday morning.  That's the morning the mountain and
+the town and the ships were all sent to hell in a minute.
+
+"All hands had had breakfast.  I was standing on the fo'c's'l head
+trying to make out the marks on the pipes of a ship 'way out and
+heading for St. Lucia.  I wasn't looking at the mountain at all.
+But I guess the captain was, for he was on the bridge, and the last
+time I heard him speak was when he shouted, 'Heave up, Mr. Scott;
+heave up.'  I gave the order to the men, and I think some of them
+did jump to get the anchor up, but nobody knows what really
+happened for the next fifteen minutes.  I turned around toward the
+captain and then I saw the mountain.
+
+"Did you ever see the tide come into the Bay of Fundy.  It doesn't
+sneak in a little at a time as it does 'round here.  It rolls in in
+waves.  That's the way the cloud of fire and mud and white-hot
+stones rolled down from that volcano over the town and over the
+ships.  It was on us in almost no time, but I saw it and in the
+same glance I saw our captain bracing himself to meet it on the
+bridge.  He was facing the fire cloud with both hands gripped hard
+to the bridge rail, his legs apart and his knees braced back stiff.
+I've seen him brace himself that same way many a time in a tough
+sea with the spray going mast-head high and green water pouring
+along the decks.
+
+"I saw the captain, I say, at the same instant I saw that ruin
+coming down on us.  I don't know why, but that last glimpse of poor
+Muggah on his bridge will stay with me just as long as I remember
+St. Pierre and that will be long enough.
+
+"In another instant it was all over for him.  As I was looking at
+him he was all ablaze.  He reeled and fell on the bridge with his
+face toward me.  His mustache and eyebrows were gone in a jiffy.
+His hat had gone, and his hair was aflame, and so were his clothes
+from head to foot.  I knew he was conscious when he fell, by the
+look in his eyes, but he didn't make a sound.
+
+"That all happened a long way inside of half a minute; then
+something new happened.  When the wave of fire was going over us, a
+tidal wave of the sea came out from the shore and did the rest.
+That wall of rushing water was so high and so solid that it seemed
+to rise up and join the smoke and flame above.  For an instant we
+could see nothing but the water and the flame.
+
+"That tidal wave picked the ship up like a canoe and then smashed
+her.  After one list to starboard the ship righted, but the masts,
+the bridge, the funnel and all the upper works had gone overboard.
+
+"I had saved myself from fire by jamming a metal ventilator cover
+over my head and jumping from the fo'c's'l head.  Two St. Kitts
+negroes saved me from the water by grabbing me by the legs and
+pulling me down into the fo'c's'l after them.  Before I could get
+up three men tumbled in on top of me.  Two of them were dead.
+
+"Captain Muggah went overboard, still clinging to the fragments of
+his wrecked bridge.  Daniel Taylor, the ship's cooper, and a Kitts
+native jumped overboard to save him.  Taylor managed to push the
+captain on to a hatch that had floated off from us and then they
+swam back to the ship for more assistance, but nothing could be
+done for the captain.  Taylor wasn't sure he was alive.  The last
+we saw of him or his dead body it was drifting shoreward on that
+hatch.
+
+"Well, after staying in the fo'c's'l about twenty minutes I went
+out on deck.  There were just four of us left aboard who could do
+anything.  The four were Thompson, Dan Taylor, Quashee, and myself.
+It was still raining fire and hot rocks and you could hardly see a
+ship's length for dust and ashes, but we could stand that.  There
+were burning men and some women and two or three children lying
+around the deck.  Not just burned, but burning, then, when we got
+to them.  More than half the ship's company had been killed in that
+first rush of flame.  Some had rolled overboard when the tidal wave
+came and we never saw so much as their bodies.  The cook was burned
+to death in his galley.  He had been paring potatoes for dinner and
+what was left of his right hand held the shank of his potato knife.
+The wooden handle was in ashes.  All that happened to a man in less
+than a minute.  The donkey engineman was killed on deck sitting in
+front of his boiler.  We found parts of some bodies--a hand, or an
+arm or a leg.  Below decks there were some twenty alive.
+
+"The ship was on fire, of course, what was left of it.  The stumps
+of both masts were blazing.  Aft she was like a furnace, but
+forward the flames had not got below deck, so we four carried those
+who were still alive on deck into the fo'c's'l.  All of them were
+burned and most of them were half strangled.
+
+"One boy, a passenger and just a little shaver [the four-year-old
+son of the late Clement Stokes, above spoken of] was picked up
+naked.  His hair and all his clothing had been burned off, but he
+was alive.  We rolled him in a blanket and put him in a sailor's
+bunk.  A few minutes later we looked at him and he was dead.
+
+"My own son's gone, too.  It had been his trick at lookout ahead
+during the dog watch that morning, when we were making for St.
+Pierre, so I supposed at first when the fire struck us that he was
+asleep in his bunk and safe.  But he wasn't.  Nobody could tell me
+where he was.  I don't know whether he was burned to death or
+rolled overboard and drowned.  He was a likely boy.  He had been
+several voyages with me and would have been a master some day.  He
+used to say he'd make me mate.
+
+"After getting all hands that had any life left in them below and
+'tended to the best we could, the four of us that were left half
+way ship-shape started in to fight the fire.  We had case oil
+stowed forward.  Thanks to that tidal wave that cleared our decks
+there wasn't much left to burn, so we got the fire down so's we
+could live on board with it for several hours more and then the
+four turned to to knock a raft together out of what timber and
+truck we could find below.  Our boats had gone overboard with the
+masts and funnel.
+
+
+PREPARED TO TRUST TO LUCK
+
+
+"We made that raft for something over thirty that were alive.  We
+put provisions on for two days and rigged up a make-shift mast and
+sail, for we intended to go to sea.  We were only three boats'
+length from the shore, but the shore was hell itself.  We intended
+to put straight out and trust to luck that the Korona, that was
+about due at St. Pierre, would pick us up.  But we did not have to
+risk the raft, for about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when we were
+almost ready to put the raft overboard, the Suchet came along and
+took us all off.  We thought for a minute just after we were
+wrecked that we were to get help from a ship that passed us.  We
+burned blue lights, but she kept on.  We learned afterward that she
+was the Roddam."
+
+Soundings made off Martinique after the explosion showed that
+earthquake effects of much importance had taken place under the sea
+bottom, which had been lifted in some places and had sunk in
+others.  While deep crevices had been formed on the land, a still
+greater effect had seemingly been produced beneath the water.
+During the explosion the sea withdrew several hundred feet from its
+shore line, and then came back steaming with fury; this indicating
+a lift and fall of the ocean bed off the isle.  Soundings made
+subsequently near the island found in one place a depth of 4,000
+feet where before it had been only 600 feet deep.  The French Cable
+Company, which was at work trying to repair the cables broken by
+the eruption, found the bottom of the Caribbean Sea so changed as
+to render the old charts useless.
+
+New charts will need to be made for future navigation.  The changes
+in sea levels were not confined to the immediate centre of volcanic
+activity, but extended as far north as Porto Rico, and it was
+believed that the seismic wave would be found to have altered the
+ocean bed round Jamaica.  Vessels plying between St. Thomas,
+Martinique, St. Lucia and other islands found it necessary to heave
+the lead while many miles at sea.
+
+It is estimated that the sea had encroached from ten feet to two
+miles along the coast of St. Vincent near Georgetown, and that a
+section on the north of the island had dropped into the sea.
+Soundings showed seven fathoms where before the eruption there were
+thirty-six fathoms of water.  Vessels that endeavored to approach
+St. Vincent toward the north reported that it was impossible to get
+nearer than eight miles to the scene of the catastrophe, and that
+at that distance the ocean was seriously perturbed as from a
+submarine volcano, boiling and hissing continually.
+
+In this connection the remarkable experience reported by the
+officers of the Danish steamship Nordby, on the day preceding the
+eruption, is of much interest, as seeming to show great convulsions
+of the sea bottom at a point several hundred miles from Martinique.
+The following is the story told by Captain Eric Lillien-skjold:
+
+
+THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF THE "NORDBY"
+
+
+"On May 5th," the captain said, "we touched at St. Michael's for
+water.  We had had an easy voyage from Girgenti, in Sicily, and we
+wanted to finish an easy run here.  We left St. Michael's on the
+same day.  Nothing worth while talking about occurred until two
+days afterward--Wednesday, May 7th.
+
+"We were plodding along slowly that day.  About noon I took the
+bridge to make an observation.  It seemed to be hotter than
+ordinary.  I shed my coat and vest and got into what little shade
+there was.  As I worked it grew hotter and hotter.  I didn't know
+what to make of it.  Along about 2 o'clock in the afternoon it was
+so hot that all hands got to talking about it.  We reckoned that
+something queer was coming off, but none of us could explain what
+it was.  You could almost see the pitch softening in the seams.
+
+"Then, as quick as you could toss a biscuit over its rail, the
+Nordby dropped--regularly dropped--three or four feet down into the
+sea.  No sooner did it do this than big waves, that looked like
+they were coming from all directions at once, began to smash
+against our sides.  This was queerer yet, because the water a
+minute before was as smooth as I ever saw it.  I had all hands
+piped on deck and we battened down everything loose to make ready
+for a storm.  And we got it all right--the strangest storm you ever
+heard tell of.
+
+"There was something wrong with the sun that afternoon.  It grew
+red and then dark red and then, about a quarter after 2, it went
+out of sight altogether.  The day got so dark that you couldn't see
+half a ship's length ahead of you.  We got our lamps going, and put
+on our oilskins, ready for a hurricane.  All of a sudden there came
+a sheet of lightning that showed up the whole tumbling sea for
+miles and miles.  We sort of ducked, expecting an awful crash of
+thunder, but it didn't come.  There was no sound except the big
+waves pounding against our sides.  There wasn't a breath of wind.
+
+"Well, sir, at that minute there began the most exciting time I've
+ever been through, and I've been on every sea on the map for
+twenty-five years.  Every second there'd be waves 15 or 20 feet
+high, belting us head-on, stern-on and broadside, all at once.  We
+could see them coming, for without any stop at all flash after
+flash of lightning was blazing all about us.
+
+"Something else we could see, too.  Sharks!  There were hundreds of
+them on all sides, jumping up and down in the water.  Some of them
+jumped clear out of it.  And sea birds!  A flock of them, squawking
+and crying, made for our rigging and perched there.  They seemed
+like they were scared to death.  But the queerest part of it all
+was the water itself.  It was hot--not so hot that our feet could
+not stand it when it washed over the deck, but hot enough to make
+us think that it had been heated by some kind of a fire.
+
+"Well that sort of thing went on hour after hour.  The waves, the
+lightning, the hot water and the sharks, and all the rest of the
+odd things happening, frightened the crew out of their wits.  Some
+of them prayed out loud--I guess the first time they ever did in
+their lives.  Some Frenchmen aboard kept running around and
+yelling, 'Cest le dernier jour!'  (This is the last day.)  We were
+all worried.  Even the officers began to think that the world was
+coming to an end.  Mighty strange things happen on the sea, but
+this topped them all.
+
+"I kept to the bridge all night.  When the first hour of morning
+came the storm was still going on.  We were all pretty much tired
+out by that time, but there was no such thing as trying to sleep.
+The waves still were batting us around and we didn't know whether
+we were one mile or a thousand miles from shore.  At 2 o'clock in
+the morning all the queer goings on stopped just the way they
+began--all of a sudden.  We lay to until daylight; then we took our
+reckonings and started off again.  We were about 700 miles off Cape
+Henlopen.
+
+"No, sir; you couldn't get me through a thing like that again for
+$10,000.  None of us was hurt, and the old Nordby herself pulled
+through all right, but I'd sooner stay ashore than see waves
+without wind and lightning without thunder."
+
+
+FIERY STREAM CONTAINED POISONOUS GASES
+
+
+Careful inspection showed that the fiery stream which so completely
+destroyed St. Pierre must have been composed of poisonous gases,
+which instantly suffocated every one who inhaled them, and of other
+gases burning furiously, for nearly all the victims had their hands
+covering their mouths, or were in some other attitude showing that
+they had perished from suffocation.
+
+It is believed that Mont Pelee threw off a great gasp of some
+exceedingly heavy and noxious gas, something akin to firedamp,
+which settled upon the city and rendered the inhabitants
+insensible.  This was followed by the sheet of flame that swept
+down the side of the mountain.  This theory is sustained by the
+experience of the survivors who were taken from the ships in the
+harbor, as they say that their first experience was one of
+faintness.
+
+The dumb animals were wiser than man, and early took warning of the
+storm of fire which Mont Pelee was storing up to hurl upon the
+island.  Even before the mountain began to rumble, late in April,
+live stock became uneasy, and at times were almost uncontrollable.
+Cattle lowed in the night.  Dogs howled and sought the company of
+their masters, and when driven forth they gave every evidence of
+fear.
+
+Wild animals disappeared from the vicinity of Mont Pelee.  Even the
+snakes, which at ordinary times are found in great numbers near the
+volcano, crawled away.  Birds ceased singing and left the trees
+that shaded the sides of Pelee.  A great fear seemed to be upon the
+island, and though it was shared by the human inhabitants, they
+alone neglected to protect themselves.
+
+Of the villages in the vicinity of St. Pierre only one escaped, the
+others suffering the fate of the city.  The fortunate one was Le
+Carbet, on the south, which escaped uninjured, the flood of lava
+stopping when within two hundred feet of the town.  Morne Rouge, a
+beautiful summer resort, frequented by the people of the island
+during the hot season as a place of recreation, also escaped.  In
+the height of the season several thousand people gathered there,
+though at the time of the explosion there were but a few hundred.
+Though located on an elevation between the city and the crater, it
+was by great good fortune saved.
+
+The Governor of Martinique, Mr. Mouttet, whose precautions to
+prevent the people fleeing from the city aided to make the work of
+death complete, was himself among the victims of the burning
+mountain.  With him in this fate was Colonel Dain, commander of the
+troops who formed a cordon round the doomed city.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+St. Vincent Island and Mont Soufriere in 1812.
+
+
+Among all the islands of the Caribbees St. Vincent is unique in
+natural wonders and beauties.  Situated about ninety-five miles
+west of Barbados, it has a length of eighteen and a width of eleven
+miles, the whole mass being largely composed of a single peak which
+rises from the ocean's bed.  From north to south volcanic hills
+traverse its length, their ridges intersected by fertile and
+beautiful valleys.
+
+A ridge of mountains crosses the island, dividing it into eastern
+and western parts.  Kingstown, the capital, a town of 8,000
+inhabitants, is on the southward side and extends along the shores
+of a beautiful bay, with mountains gradually rising behind it in
+the form of a vast amphitheatre.  Three streets, broad and lined
+with good houses, run parallel to the water-front.  There are many
+other intersecting highways, some of which lead back to the
+foothills, from which good roads ascend the mountains.
+
+The majority of the houses have red tile roofing and a goodly
+number of them are of stone, one story high, with thick walls after
+the Spanish style--the same types of houses that were in St. Pierre
+and which are not unlike the old Roman houses which in all stages
+of ruin and semi-preservation are found in Pompeii to this day.
+
+Behind the general group of the houses of the town loom the
+Governor's residence and the buildings of the botanical gardens
+which overlook the town.
+
+Kingstown is the trading centre and the town of importance in the
+island.  It contains the churches and chapels of five Protestant
+denominations and a number of excellent schools.  Away from
+Kingstown, and the smaller settlement of Georgetown, the population
+is almost wholly rural, occupying scattered villages which consist
+of negro huts clustering around a few substantial buildings or of
+cabins grouped about old plantation buildings somewhat after the
+ante-bellum fashion in our own Southern States.
+
+One of the tragedies of the West Indies was the sinking of old Port
+Royal, the resort of buccaneers, in 1692.  The harbor of Kingstown
+is commonly supposed to cover the site of the old settlement.
+There is a tradition that a buoy for many years was attached to the
+spire of a sunken church in order to warn mariners.  Three thousand
+persons perished in the disaster.
+
+
+DESCENDANTS OF ORIGINAL INDIAN POPULATION
+
+
+The northern portion of the island, that desolated by the recent
+volcanic eruption, was inhabited by people living in the manner
+just described, the great majority of them being negroes.  The
+total population of the island is about 45,000, of whom 30,000 are
+Africans and about 3,000 Europeans, the remainder being nearly all
+Asiatics.  There are, or rather were, a number of Caribs, the
+descendants of the original warlike Indian population of these
+islands.  Many of these live in St. Vincent, though there are
+others in Dominico.  As their residence was in the northern section
+of the island, the volcano seems to have completed the work for the
+Caribs of this island which the Spaniard long ago began.  These
+Caribs were really half-breds, having amalgamated with the negroes.
+Many of the blacks own land of their own, raising arrow root,
+which, since the decay of the sugar industry, is the chief export.
+
+In an island only eighteen miles long by eleven broad there is not
+room for any distinctly marked mountain range.  The whole of St.
+Vincent, in fact, is a fantastic tumble of hills, culminating in
+the volcanic ridge which runs lengthwise of the oval-shaped island.
+The culminating peak of the great volcanic mass, for St. Vincent is
+nothing more, is Mont Garou, of which La Soufriere is a sort of
+lofty excrescence in the northwest, 4,048 feet high, and flanking
+the main peak at some distance away.
+
+It may be said that all the volcanic mountains in this part of the
+West Indies have what the people call a "soufriere"--a "sulphur
+pit," or "sulphur crater"--the name coming, as in the case of past
+disturbances of Mont Pelee, from the strong stench of sulphuretted
+hydrogen which issues from them when the volcano becomes agitated.
+
+In 1812 it was La Soufriere adjacent to Mont Garou which broke
+loose on the island of St. Vincent, and it is the same Soufriere
+which again has devastated the island and has bombarded Kingstown
+with rocks, lava and ashes.
+
+The old crater of Mont Garou has long been extinct, and, like the
+old crater of Mont Pelee, near St. Pierre, it had far down in its
+depths, surrounded by sheer cliffs from 500 to 800 feet high, a
+lake.  Glimpses of the lake of Mont Garou are difficult to get,
+owing to the thick verdure growing about the dangerous edges of the
+precipices, but those who have seen it describe it as a beautiful
+sheet of deep blue water.
+
+
+THE APPEARANCE OF THE SOUFRIERE
+
+
+Previous to the eruption of 1812 the appearance of the Soufriere
+was most interesting.  The crater was half a mile in diameter and
+five hundred feet in depth.  In its centre was a conical hill,
+fringed with shrubs and vines; at whose base were two small lakes,
+one sulphurous, the other pure and tasteless.  This lovely and
+beautiful spot was rendered more interesting by the singularly
+melodious notes of a bird, an inhabitant of these upper solitudes,
+and altogether unknown to the other parts of the island--hence
+called, or supposed to be, "invisible," as it had never been seen.
+(It is of interest to state that Frederick A. Ober, in a visit to
+the island some twenty years ago, succeeded in obtaining specimens
+of this previously unknown bird.)  From the fissures of the cone a
+thin white smoke exuded, occasionally tinged with a light blue
+flame.  Evergreens, flowers and aromatic shrubs clothed the steep
+sides of the crater, which made, as the first indication of the
+eruption on April 27, 1812, a tremulous noise in the air.  A severe
+concussion of the earth followed, and then a column of thick black
+smoke burst from the crater.
+
+
+THE ERUPTION OF 1812
+
+
+The eruption which followed these premonitory symptoms was one of
+the most terrific which had occurred in the West Indies up to that
+time.  It was the culminating event which seemed to relieve a
+pressure within the earth's crust which extended from the
+Mississippi Valley to Caracas, Venezuela, producing terrible
+effects in the latter place.  Here, thirty-five days before the
+volcanic explosion, the ground was rent and shaken by a frightful
+earthquake which hurled the city in ruins to the ground and killed
+ten thousand of its inhabitants in a moment of time.
+
+La Soufriere made the first historic display of its hidden powers
+in 1718, when lava poured from its crater.  A far more violent
+demonstration of its destructive forces was that above mentioned.
+On this occasion the eruption lasted for three days, ruining a
+number of the estates in the vicinity and destroying many lives.
+Myriads of tons of ashes, cinders, pumice and scoriae, hurled from
+the crater, fell in every section of the island.  Volumes of sand
+darkened the air, and woods, ridges and cane fields were covered
+with light gray ashes, which speedily destroyed all vegetation.
+The sun for three days seemed to be in a total eclipse, the sea was
+discolored and the ground bore a wintry appearance from the white
+crust of fallen ashes.
+
+Carib natives who lived at Morne Rond fled from their houses to
+Kingstown.  As the third day drew to a close flames sprang
+pyramidically from the crater, accompanied by loud thunder and
+electric flashes, which rent the column of smoke hanging over the
+volcano.  Eruptive matter pouring from the northwest side plunged
+over the cliff, carrying down rocks and woods in its course.  The
+island was shaken by an earthquake and bombarded with showers of
+cinders and stones, which set houses on fire and killed many of the
+natives.
+
+
+THE TERRIBLE EARTHQUAKE AT CARACAS
+
+
+For nearly two years before this explosion earthquakes had been
+common, and sea and land had been agitated from the valley of the
+Mississippi to the coasts of Venezuela and the mountains of New
+Grenada, and from the Azores to the West Indies.  On March 26,
+1812, these culminated in the terrible tragedy, spoken of above, of
+which Humboldt gives us a vivid account.
+
+On that day the people of the Venezuelan city of Caracas were
+assembled in the churches, beneath a still and blazing sky, when
+the earth suddenly heaved and shook, like a great monster waking
+from slumber, and in a single minute 10,000 people were buried
+beneath the walls of churches and houses, which tumbled in hideous
+ruin upon their heads.  The same earthquake made itself felt along
+the whole line of the Northern Cordilleras, working terrible
+destruction, and shook the earth as far as Santa Fe de Bogota and
+Honda, 180 leagues from Caracas.  This was a preliminary symptom of
+the internal disorder of the earth.
+
+While the wretched inhabitants of Caracas who had escaped the
+earthquake were dying of fever and starvation, and seeking among
+villages and farms places of safety from the renewed earthquake
+shocks, the almost forgotten volcano of St. Vincent was muttering
+in suppressed wrath.  For twelve months it had given warning, by
+frequent shocks of the earth, that it was making ready to play its
+part in the great subterranean battle.  On the 27th of April its
+deep-hidden powers broke their bonds, and the conflict between rock
+and fire began.
+
+
+THE MOUNTAIN STONES A HERD-BOY
+
+
+The first intimation of the outbreak was rather amusing than
+alarming.  A negro boy was herding cattle on the mountain side.  A
+stone fell near him.  Another followed.  He fancied that some other
+boys were pelting him from the cliff above, and began throwing
+stones upward at his fancied concealed tormentors.  But the stones
+fell thicker, among them some too large to be thrown by any human
+hand.  Only then did the little fellow awake to the fact that it
+was not a boy like himself, but the mighty mountain, that was
+flinging these stones at him.  He looked up and saw that the black
+column which was rising from the crater's mouth was no longer
+harmless vapor, but dust, ashes and stones.  Leaving the cattle to
+their fate, he fled for his life, while the mighty cannon of the
+Titans roared behind him as he ran.  For three days and nights this
+continued; then, on the 30th, a stream of lava poured over the
+crater's rim and rushed downward, reaching the sea in four hours,
+and the great eruption was at an end.
+
+On the same day, says Humboldt, at a distance of more than 200
+leagues, "the inhabitants not only of Caracas, but of Calabozo,
+situated in the midst of the Lianos, over a space of 4,000 square
+leagues, were terrified by a subterranean noise which resembled
+frequent discharges of the heaviest cannon.  It was accompanied by
+no shock, and, what is very remarkable, was as loud on the coast as
+at eighty leagues' distance inland, and at Caracas, as well as at
+Calabozo, preparations were made to put the place in defence
+against an enemy who seemed to be advancing with heavy artillery."
+
+It was no enemy that man could deal with.  Fortunately, it confined
+its assault to deep noises, and desisted from earthquake shocks.
+Similar noises were heard in Martinique and Guadeloupe, and here
+also without shocks.  The internal thunder was the signal of what
+was taking place on St. Vincent.  With this last warning sound the
+trouble, which had lasted so long, was at an end.  The earthquakes
+which for two years had shaken a sheet of the earth's surface
+larger than half Europe, were stilled by the eruption of St.
+Vincent's volcanic peak.
+
+
+BARBADOS COVERED WITH ASHES
+
+
+Northeast of the original crater of the Soufriere a new one was
+formed which was a half mile in diameter and five hundred feet
+deep.  The old crater was in time transformed into a beautiful blue
+lake, as above stated, walled in by ragged cliffs to a height of
+eight hundred feet.
+
+It was looked upon as a remarkable circumstance that although the
+air was perfectly calm during the eruption, Barbados, which is
+ninety-five miles to the windward, was covered inches deep with
+ashes.  The inhabitants there and on other neighboring islands were
+terrified by the darkness, which continued for four hours and a
+half.  Troops were called under arms, the supposition from the
+continued noise being that hostile fleets were in an engagement.
+
+The movement of the ashes to windward, as just stated, was viewed
+as a remarkable phenomenon, and is cited by Elise Reclus, in "The
+Ocean," to show the force of different aerial currents; "On the
+first day of May, 1812, when the northeast trade-wind was in all
+its force, enormous quantities of ashes obscured the atmosphere
+above the Island of Barbados, and covered the ground with a thick
+layer.  One would have supposed that they came from the volcanoes
+of the Azores, which were to the northeast; nevertheless they were
+cast up by the crater in St. Vincent, one hundred miles to the
+west.  It is therefore certain that the debris had been hurled, by
+the force of the eruption, above the moving sheet of the trade-
+winds into an aerial river proceeding in a contrary direction."
+For this it must have been hurled miles high into the air, till
+caught by the current of the anti-trade winds.
+
+
+KINGSLEY'S VISIT TO SAINT VINCENT
+
+
+From Charles Kingsley's "At Last" we extract, from the account of
+the visit of the author to St. Vincent, some interesting matter
+concerning the 1812 eruption and its effect on the mountain; also
+its influence upon distant Barbados, as just stated.
+
+"The strangest fact about this eruption was, that the mountain did
+not make use of its old crater.  The original vent must have become
+so jammed and consolidated, in the few years between 1785 and 1812,
+that it could not be reopened, even by a steam force the vastness
+of which may be guessed at from the vastness of the area which it
+had shaken for two years.  So, when the eruption was over, it was
+found that the old crater-lake, incredible as it may seem, remained
+undisturbed, so far as has been ascertained; but close to it, and
+separated only by a knife-edge of rock some 700 feet in height, and
+so narrow that, as I was assured by one who had seen it, it is
+dangerous to crawl along it, a second crater, nearly as large as
+the first, had been blasted out, the bottom of which, in like
+manner, was afterward filled with water.
+
+"I regretted much that I could not visit it.  Three points I longed
+to ascertain carefully--the relative heights of the water in the
+two craters; the height and nature of the spot where the lava
+stream issued; and, lastly, if possible, the actual causes of the
+locally famous Rabacca, or 'Dry River,' one of the largest streams
+in the island, which was swallowed up during the eruption, at a
+short distance from its source, leaving its bed an arid gully to
+this day.  But it could not be, and I owe what little I know of the
+summit of the soufriere principally to a most intelligent and
+gentleman-like young Wesleyan minister, whose name has escaped me.
+He described vividly, as we stood together on the deck, looking up
+at the volcano, the awful beauty of the twin lakes, and of the
+clouds which, for months together, whirl in and out of the cups in
+fantastic shapes before the eddies of the trade wind.
+
+
+BLACK SUNDAY AT BARBADOS
+
+
+"The day after the explosion, 'Black Sunday,' gave a proof of,
+though no measure of, the enormous force which had been exerted.
+Eighty miles to windward lies Barbados.  All Saturday a heavy
+cannonading had been heard to the eastward.  The English and French
+fleets were surely engaged.  The soldiers were called out; the
+batteries manned; but the cannonade died away, and all went to bed
+in wonder.  On the 1st of May the clocks struck six, but the sun
+did not, as usual in the tropics, answer to the call.  The darkness
+was still intense, and grew more intense as the morning wore on.  A
+slow and silent rain of impalpable dust was falling over the whole
+island.  The negroes rushed shrieking into the streets.  Surely the
+last day was come.  The white folk caught (and little blame to
+them) the panic, and some began to pray who had not prayed for
+years.  The pious and the educated (and there were plenty of both
+in Barbados) were not proof against the infection.  Old letters
+describe the scene in the churches that morning as hideous--
+prayers, sobs, and cries, in Stygian darkness, from trembling
+crowds.  And still the darkness continued and the dust fell.
+
+
+INCIDENTS AT BARBADOS
+
+
+"I have a letter written by one long since dead, who had at least
+powers of description of no common order, telling how, when he
+tried to go out of his house upon the east coast, he could not find
+the trees on his own lawn save by feeling for their stems.  He
+stood amazed not only in utter darkness, but in utter silence; for
+the trade-wind had fallen dead, the everlasting roar of the surf
+was gone, and the only noise was the crashing of branches, snapped
+by the weight of the clammy dust.  He went in again, and waited.
+About one o'clock the veil began to lift; a lurid sunlight stared
+in from the horizon, but all was black overhead.  Gradually the
+dust drifted away; the island saw the sun once more, and saw itself
+inches deep in black, and in this case fertilizing, dust.  The
+trade-wind blew suddenly once more out of the clear east, and the
+surf roared again along the shore.
+
+"Meanwhile a heavy earthquake-wave had struck part at least of the
+shores of Barbados.  The gentleman on the east coast, going out,
+found traces of the sea, and boats and logs washed up some ten to
+twenty feet above high-tide mark; a convulsion which seemed to have
+gone unmarked during the general dismay.
+
+"One man at least, an old friend of John Hunter, Sir Joseph Banks
+and others their compeers, was above the dismay, and the
+superstitious panic which accompanied it.  Finding it still dark
+when he rose to dress, he opened (so the story used to run) his
+window; found it stick, and felt upon the sill a coat of soft
+powder.  "The volcano in St. Vincent has broken out at last,' said
+the wise man, 'and this is the dust of it.'  So he quieted his
+household and his negroes, lighted his candles, and went to his
+scientific books, in that delight, mingled with an awe not the less
+deep, because it is rational and self-possessed, with which he,
+like the other men of science, looked at the wonders of this
+wondrous world."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+Submarine Volcanoes and their Work of Island Building.
+
+
+In November, 1867, a volcano suddenly began to show signs of
+activity beneath the deep sea of the Pacific Ocean.  There are some
+islands nearly two thousands miles to the east of Australia called
+the Navigator's Group, in which there had been no history of an
+eruption, nor had such an event been handed down by tradition.
+Most of the islands in the Pacific Ocean are old volcanoes, or are
+made up of rocks cast forth from extinct burning mountains.  They
+rise up like peaks through the great depths of the ocean, and the
+top, which just appears above the sea-level, is generally encircled
+by a growth of coral.  Hence they are termed coral islands.  These
+islands every now and then rise higher than the sea-level, owing to
+some deep upheaving force, and then the coral is lifted up above
+the water, and become a solid rock.  But occasionally the reverse
+of this takes place, and the islands begin to sink into the sea,
+owing to a force which causes the base of the submarine mountain to
+become depressed.  Sometimes they disappear.  All this shows that
+some great disturbing forces are in action at the bottom of the
+sea, and just within the earth's crust, and that they are of a
+volcanic nature.
+
+For some time before the eruption in question, earthquakes shook
+the surrounding islands of the Navigator's Group, and caused great
+alarm, and when the trembling of the earth was very great, the sea
+began to be agitated near one of the islands, and vast circles of
+disturbed water were formed.  Soon the water began to be forced
+upwards, and dead fish were seen floating about.  After a while,
+steam rushed forth, and jets of mud and volcanic sand.  Moreover,
+when the steam began to rush up out of the water, the violence of
+the general agitation of the land and of the surface of the sea
+increased.
+
+
+AN ERUPTION DESCRIBED
+
+
+When the eruption was at its height vast columns of mud and masses
+of stone rushed into the air to a height of 2,000 feet, and the
+fearful crash of masses of rock hurled upwards and coming in
+collision with others which were falling attested the great volume
+of ejected matter which accumulated in the bed of the ocean,
+although no trace of a volcano could be seen above the surface of
+the sea.  Similar submarine volcanic action has been observed in
+the Atlantic Ocean, and crews of ships have reported that they have
+seen in different places sulphurous smoke, flame, jets of water,
+and steam, rising up from the sea, or they have observed the waters
+greatly discolored and in a state of violent agitation, as if
+boiling in large circles.
+
+New shoals have also been encountered, or a reef of rocks just
+emerging above the surface, where previously there was always
+supposed to have been deep water.  On some few occasions, the
+gradual building up of an island by submarine volcanoes has been
+observed, as that of Sabrina in 1181, off St. Michael's, in the
+Azores.  The throwing up of ashes in this case, and the formation
+of a conical hill 300 feet high, with a crater out of which spouted
+lava and steam, took place very rapidly.  But the waves had the
+best of it, and finally washed Sabrina into the depths of the
+ocean.  Previous eruptions in the same part of the sea were
+recorded as having happened in 1691 and 1720.
+
+In 1831, a submarine volcanic eruption occurred in the
+Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and that part of the African
+coast where Carthage formerly stood.  A few years before, Captain
+Smyth had sounded the spot in a survey of the sea ordered by
+Government, and he found the sea-bottom to be under 500 feet of
+water.  On June 28, about a fortnight before the eruption was
+visible, Sir Pulteney Malcom, in passing over the spot in his ship,
+felt the shock of an earthquake as if he had struck on a sandbank,
+and the same shocks were felt on the west coast of Sicily, in a
+direction from south-west to north-east.
+
+
+BUILDING UP OF AN ISLAND BY SUBMARINE VOLCANOES
+
+
+About July 10, the captain of a Sicilian vessel reported that as he
+passed near the place he saw a column of water like a waterspout,
+sixty feet high, and 800 yards in circumference, rising from the
+sea, and soon after a dense rush of steam in its place, which
+ascended to the height of 1,800 feet.  The same captain, on his
+return eighteen days after, found a small island twelve feet high,
+with a crater in its centre, throwing forth volcanic matter and
+immense columns of vapor, the sea around being covered with
+floating cinders and dead fish.  The eruption continued with great
+violence to the end of the same month.  By the end of the month the
+island grew to ninety feet in height, and measured three-quarters
+of a mile round.  By August 4th it became 200 feet high and three
+miles in circumference; after which it began to diminish in size by
+the action of the waves.  Towards the end of October the island was
+levelled nearly to the surface of the sea.
+
+Naval officers and foreign ministers alike took an absorbing
+interest in this new island.  The strong national thirst for
+territory manifested itself and eager mariners waited only till the
+new land should be cool enough to set foot on to strive who should
+be first to plant there his country's flag.  Names in abundance
+were given it by successive observers,--Nerita, Sciacca,
+Fernandina, Julia, Hotham, Corrao, and Graham.  The last holds good
+in English speech, and as Graham's Island it is known in books to-
+day, though the sea took back what it had given, leaving but a
+shoal of cinders and sand.
+
+The Bay of Santorin, in the island of that name, which lies
+immediately to the north of Crete, has long been noted for its
+submarine volcanoes.  According to one account, indeed, the whole
+island was at a remote period raised from the bottom of the sea;
+but this is questionable.  It is, with more reason, supposed that
+the bay is the site of an ancient crater, which was situated on the
+summit of a volcanic cone that subsequently fell in.  Certain it is
+that islands have from time to time been thrown up by volcanic
+forces from the bottom of the sea within this bay, and that some of
+them have remained, while others have sunk again.
+
+
+HOW AN ISLAND GREW
+
+
+Of the existing islands, some were thrown up shortly before the
+beginning of the Christian era; in particular, one called the Great
+Cammeni, which, however, received a considerable accession to its
+size by a fresh eruption in A. D. 726.  The islet nearest Santorin
+was raised in 1573, and was named the Little Cammeni; and in 1707
+there was added, between the other two, a third, which is now
+called the Black Island.  This made its appearance above water on
+the 23rd of May, 1707, and was first mistaken for a wreck; but some
+sailors, who landed on it, found it to be a mass of rock;
+consisting of a very white soft stone, to which were adhering
+quantities of fresh oysters.  While they were collecting these, a
+violent shaking of the ground scared them away.
+
+During several weeks the island gradually increased in volume; but
+in July, at a distance of about sixty paces from the new islet,
+there was thrown up a chain of black calcined rocks, followed by
+volumes of thick black smoke, having a sulphurous smell.  A few
+days thereafter the water all around the spot became hot, and many
+dead fishes were thrown up.  Then, with loud subterraneous noises,
+flames arose, and fresh quantities of stones and other substances
+were ejected, until the chain of black rocks became united to the
+first islet that had appeared.  This eruption continued for a long
+time, there being thrown out quantities of ashes and pumice, which
+covered the island of Santorin and the surface of the sea--some
+being drifted to the coasts of Asia Minor and the Dardanelles.  The
+activity of this miniature volcano was prolonged, with greater or
+less energy, for about ten years.
+
+In 1866 similar phenomena took place in the Bay of Santorin,
+beginning with underground sounds and slight shocks of earthquake,
+which were followed by the appearance of flames on the surface of
+the sea.  Soon after there arose, out of a dense smoke, a small
+islet, which gradually increased until in a week's time it was 60
+feet high, 200 long and 90 wide.  The people of Santorin named it
+"George," in honor of the King of Greece.  In another week it
+joined and became continuous with the Little Cammeni.  The
+detonations increased in loudness, and large quantities of
+incandescent stones were thrown up from the crater.
+
+About the same time, at the distance of nearly 150 feet from the
+coast, to the westward of a point called Cape Phlego, there rose
+from the sea another island, to which was given the name of
+Aphroessa.  It sank and reappeared several times before it
+established itself above water.  The detonations and ejection of
+incandescent lava and stones continued at intervals during three
+weeks.  From the crater of the islet George, which attained a
+height of 150 feet, some stones several cubic yards in bulk were
+projected to a great distance.  One of them falling on board of a
+merchant vessel, killed the captain and set fire to the ship.
+
+By the 10th of March the eruptions had partially subsided, but were
+then renewed, and a third island, which was named Reka, rose
+alongside of Aphroessa.  They were at first separated by a channel
+sixty feet deep; but in three days this was filled up, and the two
+islets became united.
+
+Reference may properly be made here to Monte Nuovo and Jorullo, not
+that they appertain to the present subject, but that they form
+examples of the action of similar forces, in the one instance
+exerted on a lake bottom, in the other on dry land, each yielding
+permanent volcanic elevations in every respect analogous to those
+which rise as islands from the bottom of the sea.
+
+
+IN THE ICELANDIC SEAS
+
+
+Off the coast of Iceland islands have appeared during several of
+the volcanic eruptions which that remote dependency of Denmark has
+manifested, and at various periods in Iceland's history the sea has
+been covered with pumice and other debris, which tell their own
+tale of what has been going on, without being in sufficient
+quantity to reach the surface in the form of an island mass.  The
+sea off Reykjanes--Smoky Cape, as the name means--has been a
+frequent scene of these submarine eruptions.  In 1240, during what
+the Icelandic historians describe as the eighth outburst, a number
+of islets were formed, though most of them subsequently
+disappeared, only to have their places occupied by others born at a
+later date.  In 1422 high rocks of considerable circumference
+appeared.  In 1783, about a month before the eruption of Skaptar
+Jokull, a volcanic island named Nyoe, from which fire and smoke
+issued, was built up.  But in time it vanished under the waves, all
+that remains of it to-day being a reef from five to thirty-five
+fathoms below the sea-level.  In 1830, after several long-continued
+eruptions of the usual character, another isle arose; while at the
+same time the skerries known as the Geirfuglaska disappeared, and
+with them vanished the great auks, or gare-fowls--birds now
+extinct--which up to that time had bred on them.  At all events,
+though the auks could not well have been drowned, no traces of them
+were seen after the date mentioned.  In July, 1884, an island again
+appeared about ten miles off Reykjanes; but it is already beginning
+to diminish in size, and may soon disappear.
+
+
+OFF THE COAST OF ALASKA
+
+
+Elsewhere in the region of the northern seas there are other
+instances of the influence of the submarine forces in raising up
+and lowering land.  The coast of Alaska is a region of intense
+volcanic action.  In 1795, during a period of volcanic activity in
+the craters of Makushina, on Unalaska, and in others on Umnak
+Island, a volume of smoke was seen to rise out of the sea about 42
+miles to the north of Unalaska, and the next year it was followed
+by a heap of cindery material, from which arose flame and volcanic
+matter, the glow being visible over a radius of ten miles.  In four
+years the island grew into a large cone, 3000 feet above the sea-
+level, and two or three miles in circumference.  Two years later it
+was still so hot that when some hunters landed on it they found the
+soil too warm for walking.  It was named Ionna Bogoslova (St. John
+the Theologian), by the Russians, Agashagok by the Aleuts, and is
+now known to the whites of that region as Bogosloff.  Mr. Dall
+believes that it occupies the site of some rocks that existed there
+as long as tradition extends.
+
+There were additions to the cone up to the year 1823, when it
+became so quiescent as to be the favorite haunt of seals and sea-
+fowls, and, when the weather was favorable, was visited by native
+egg-hunters from Unalaska.  During the summer of 1883 Bogosloff was
+again seen in eruption, as it was thought.  However, on closely
+examining the neighborhood, it was found that the old island was
+undisturbed, but that there had been a fresh eruption, which had
+resulted in the extension of Bogosloff by the appearance of a cone
+and crater (Hague Volcano), 357 feet high, connected with the
+parent island by a low sand-spit, and situated in a spot where, the
+year before, the lead showed 800 fathoms of water.  At the same
+time Augustin and two other previously quiet islands on the
+peninsula of Alaska began simultaneously to emit smoke, dust and
+ashes, while a reef running westward and formerly submerged became
+elevated to the sea surface.  Other islands, of origin exactly
+similar to Bogosloff and those mentioned, are to be found in this
+region, notably Koniugi and Kasatochi, in the western Aleutians,
+and Pinnacle Island, near St. Matthew Island.  Indeed, the volcano
+of Kliutchevsk, which rises to a height of over 15,000 feet, is
+really a volcanic island.
+
+A permanent addition was made to the Aleutian group of Islands by
+the action of a submarine volcano in 1806.  This new island has the
+form of a volcanic peak, with several subsidiary cones.  It is four
+geographical miles in circumference.  In 1814 another arose out of
+the sea in the same archipelago, the cone of which attained a
+height of 3,000 feet; but at the end of a year it lost a portion of
+this elevation.
+
+In 1856, in the sea in the same neighborhood, Captain Newell, of
+the whaling bark Alice Fraser, witnessed a submarine eruption,
+which was also seen by the crews of several other vessels.  There
+was no island formed on this occasion, but large jets of water were
+thrown up, and the sea was greatly agitated all around.  Then
+followed volcanic smoke, and quantities of stones, ashes, and
+pumice; the two latter being scattered over the surface of the sea
+to a great distance.  Loud thundering reports accompanied this
+eruption, and all the ships in the neighborhood felt concussions
+like those produced by an earthquake.  These phenomena seem to have
+ended in the formation of some great submarine chasm, into which
+the waters rushed with extreme violence and a terrific roar.
+
+Occurrences similar to this last have been several times observed
+in a tract of open sea in the Atlantic, about half a degree south
+of the equator, and between 20 and 22 degrees of west longitude.
+Although quantities of volcanic dross have been from time to time
+thrown up to the surface in this region, no island has yet made its
+appearance above water.
+
+The events here described repeat on a far smaller scale similar
+ones which have occurred in remote ages in many parts of the ocean
+and left great island masses as the permanent effects of their
+work.  We may instance the Hawaiian group, which is wholly of
+volcanic origin, with the exception of its minor coral additions,
+and represents a stupendous activity of underground agencies
+beneath the domain of Father Neptune.
+
+In part, as we have said elsewhere in this work, all oceanic
+islands, remote from those in the shoal bordering waters of the
+continents, have been of volcanic or coral formation, or more often
+a combination of the two.  No sooner does an island mass appear
+above or near the surface of tropical waters than the minute coral
+animals--effective only by their myriads--begin their labors,
+building fringes of coral rock around the cindery heaps lifted from
+the ocean floor.  The atolls of the Pacific--circular or oval rings
+of coral with lagunes of sea-water within--have long been thought
+to be built on the rims of submarine volcanoes, rising to within a
+few hundred feet of the surface, much as coral reefs around actual
+islands.  If the volcanic mass should subsequently subside, as it
+is likely to do, the minute ocean builders will continue their
+work--unless the subsidence be too rapid for their powers of
+production--and in this way ring-like islands of coral may in time
+rise from great depths of sea, their basis being the volcanic
+island which has sunk from near the surface far toward old ocean's
+primal floor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+Mud Volcanoes, Geysers, and Hot Springs.
+
+
+Our usual impression of a volcano is indicated in the title of
+"burning mountain," so often employed, a great fire-spouting cone
+of volcanic debris, from which steam, lava, rock-masses, cinder-
+like fragments, and dust, often of extreme fineness, are flung high
+into the air or flow in river-like torrents of molten rock.  This,
+no doubt, applies in the majority of cases, but the volcanic forces
+do not confine themselves to these magnificent displays of energy,
+nor are their products limited to those above specified.  We have
+seen that mud is a not uncommon product, due to the mingling of
+water with volcanic dust, while water alone is occasionally
+emitted, of which we have a marked instance in the Volcan de Agua,
+of Guatemala, already mentioned.  As regards mud flows, we may
+specially instance the first outflow from Mont Pelee, that by which
+the Guerin sugar works were overwhelmed.
+
+The imprisoned forces of the earth have still other modes of
+manifestation.  A very frequent one of these, and the most
+destructive to human life of them all, is the earthquake.
+
+Minor manifestations of volcanic action may be seen in the geyser
+and the hot spring, the latter the most widely disseminated of all
+the resultant effects of the heated condition of the earth's
+interior.  It is these displays of subterranean energy, differing
+from those usually termed volcanic, yet due to the same general
+causes, that we have next to consider.  And it may be premised that
+their manifestations, while, except in the case of the earthquake,
+less violent, are no less interesting, especially as the minor
+displays are free from that peril to human life which renders the
+major ones so terrible.
+
+While the largest volcanoes at times pour out rivers of liquid mud,
+there are volcanoes from which nothing is ever ejected but mud and
+water, the latter being generally salt.  From this circumstance
+they are sometimes called salses, but they are more generally
+termed mud-volcanoes.  Some varieties of them throw out little else
+than gases of different sorts, and these are called air-volcanoes.
+
+
+THE GREAT MUD VOLCANO OF SICILY
+
+
+One of the best known mud-volcanoes is at Macaluba, near Girgenti,
+in Sicily.  It consists of several conical mounds, varying from
+time to time in their form and height, which ranges from eight to
+thirty feet.  From orifices on the tops of these mounds there are
+thrown out sometimes jets of warmish water and mud mixed with
+bitumen, sometimes bubbles of gas, chiefly carbonic acid and
+carburetted hydrogen, occasionally pure nitrogen.  The mud ejected
+has often a strong sulphurous smell.  The jets in general ascend
+only to a moderate height; but occasionally they are thrown up with
+great violence, attaining a height of about 200 feet.  In 1777
+there was ejected an immense column, consisting of mud strongly
+impregnated with sulphur and mixed with naphtha and stones,
+accompanied also by quantities of sulphurous vapors.  This mud-
+volcano is known to have been in action for fifteen centuries.
+
+Very recently a small mud-volcano has been formed on the flanks of
+Mount Etna.  It began with the throwing up of jets of boiling
+water, mixed with petroleum and mud, great quantities of gas
+bubbling up at the same time.  In several of the valleys of Iceland
+there are similar phenomena, the boiling water and mud being thrown
+up in jets to the height of fifteen feet and upwards, the mud
+accumulating around the orifices whence the jets arise.
+
+A mud-volcano named Korabetoff, in the Crimea, presents phenomena
+more akin to those of the igneous volcanoes of South America.
+There was an eruption from this mountain on the 6th of August,
+1853.  It began by throwing up from the summit a column of fire and
+smoke, which ascended to a great height.  This continued for five
+or six minutes, and was followed at short intervals by two similar
+eruptions.  There was then ejected with a hissing noise a quantity
+of black fetid mud, which was so hot as to scorch the grass on the
+edges of the stream.  The mud continued to pour out for three
+hours, covering a wide space at the mountain's base.  The mud-
+volcanoes on the coast of Beloochistan are very numerous, and
+extend over an area of nearly a thousand square miles.  Their
+action resembles that at Macaluba.
+
+
+THE MUD VOLCANO OF JAVA
+
+
+There is a mud volcano in Java which is of interest as somewhat
+resembling the geyser in its mode of operation and apparently due
+to similar agencies.  It is thus described by Dr. Horsfield:--
+
+"On approaching it from a distance, it is first discovered by a
+large volume of smoke, rising and disappearing at intervals of a
+few seconds, resembling the vapors rising from a violent surf.  A
+loud noise is heard, like that of distant thunder.  Having advanced
+so near that the vision was no longer impeded by the smoke, a large
+hemispherical mass was observed, consisting of black earth mixed
+with water, about sixteen feet in diameter, rising to the height of
+twenty or thirty feet in a perfectly regular manner, and as if it
+were pushed up by a force beneath, which suddenly exploded with a
+loud noise, and scattered about a volume of black mud in every
+direction.  After an interval of two or three, or sometimes four or
+five seconds, the hemispherical body of mud rose and exploded
+again.  In the manner stated this volcanic ebullition goes on
+without interruption, throwing up a globular body of mud, and
+dispersing it with violence through the neighboring plain.  The
+spot where the ebullition occurs is nearly circular, and perfectly
+level.  It is covered only with the earthy particles, impregnated
+with salt water, which are thrown up from below.  The circumference
+may be estimated at about half an English mile.  In order to
+conduct the salt water to the circumference, small passages or
+gutters are made in the loose muddy earth, which lead to the
+borders, where it is collected in holes dug in the ground for the
+purpose of evaporation."
+
+The mud has a strong, pungent, sulphurous smell, resembling that of
+mineral oil, and is hotter than the surrounding atmosphere.  During
+the rainy season the explosions increase in violence.
+
+There are submarine mud volcanoes as well as those of igneous kind.
+In 1814 one of this character broke out in the Sea of Azof,
+beginning with flame and black smoke, accompanied by earth and
+stones, which were flung to a great height.  Ten of these
+explosions occurred, and, after a period of rest, others were heard
+during the night.  The next morning there was visible above the
+water an island of mud some ten feet high.  A very similar
+occurrence took place in 1827, near Baku, in the Caspian sea.  This
+began with a flaming display and the ejection of great fragments of
+rock.  An eruption of mud succeeded.  A set of small volcanoes
+discovered by Humboldt in Turbaco, in South America, confined their
+emissions almost wholly to gases, chiefly nitrogen.
+
+There is a close connection in character between mud volcanoes and
+those intermittent boiling springs named geysers.  A good many of
+the mud volcanoes throw out jets of boiling water along with the
+mud; but in the case of the geysers, the boiling water is ejected
+alone, without any visible impregnation, though some mineral in
+solution, as silica, carbonate of lime, or sulphur, is usually
+present.
+
+
+THE GEYSER IS A WATER VOLCANO
+
+
+The phenomenon of the geyser serves in a measure to support the
+theory that steam is an important agent in volcanic action.  A
+geyser, in fact, may be designated as a water volcano, since it
+throws up water only.  It comprises a cone or mound, usually only a
+few feet high.  In the middle of this is a crater-like opening with
+a passage leading down into the earth.  As in the case of the
+volcano, the geyser cone is built up by its own action.  In the
+boiling water which is ejected there is dissolved a certain amount
+of silica.  As the water falls and cools this mineral is deposited,
+gradually building up a cup-like elevation.  The basin of the
+geyser is generally full of clear water, with a little steam rising
+from its surface; but at intervals an eruption takes place,
+sometimes at regular periods, but more often at irregular
+intervals.
+
+Among the largest and best known geysers in the world are those of
+Iceland, chief among them being the Great Geyser.  Silica is the
+mineral with which the waters of this fountain are impregnated, and
+the substance which they deposit, as they slowly evaporate, is
+named siliceous sinter.  Of this material is composed the mound,
+six or seven feet high, on which the spring is situated.  On the
+top of the mound is a large oval basin, about three feet in depth,
+measuring in its larger diameter about fifty-six, and in its
+shorter about forty-six feet.  The centre of this basin is occupied
+by a circular well about ten feet in diameter, and between seventy
+and eighty feet deep.
+
+Out of the central well springs a jet of boiling water, at
+intervals of six or seven hours.  When the fountain is at rest,
+both the basin and the well appear quite empty, and no steam is
+seen.  But on the approach of the moment for action, the water
+rises in the well, till it flows over into the basin.  Then loud
+subterranean explosions are heard, and the ground all round is
+violently shaken.
+
+Instantly, and with immense force, a steaming jet of boiling water,
+of the full width of the well, springs up and ascends to a great
+height in the air.  The top of this large column of water is
+enveloped in vast clouds of steam, which diffuse themselves through
+the air, rendering it misty.  These jets succeed each other with
+great rapidity to the number of sixteen or eighteen, the period of
+action of the fountain being about five minutes.  The last of the
+jets generally ascends to the greatest height, usually to about
+100, but sometimes to 150 feet; on one occasion it rose to the
+great height of 212 feet.  Having ejected this great column of
+water, the action ceases, and the water that had filled the basin
+sinks down into the well.  There it remains till the time for the
+next eruption, when the same phenomena are repeated.  It has been
+found that, by throwing large stones into the well, the period of
+the eruption may be hastened, while the loudness of the explosions
+and the violence of the fountain effect are increased, the stones
+being at the same time ejected with great force.
+
+
+ERUPTION CAN BE INDUCED BY ARTIFICIAL MEANS
+
+
+Geysers are found all over the island, presenting various
+peculiarities.  In the case of one of the smaller ones, which is
+called Strokr, or the Churn, an eruption can be induced by
+artificial means.  A barrow-load of sods is thrown into the crater
+of the geyser, with the effect of causing an eruption.  The
+sensitiveness of Strokr is due to its peculiar form.  An observer
+states that, "The bore is eight feet in diameter at the top, and
+forty-four feet deep.  Below twenty-seven feet it contracts to
+nineteen inches, so that the turf thrown in completely chokes it.
+Steam collects below; a foaming scum covers the surface of the
+water, and in a quarter of an hour it surges up the pipe.  The
+fountain then begins playing, sending its bundles of jets rather
+higher than those of the Great Geyser, flinging up the clods of
+turf which have been its obstruction like a number of rockets.
+This magnificent display continues for a quarter of an hour or
+twenty minutes.  The erupted water flows back into the pipe from
+the curved sides of the bowl.  This occasions a succession of
+bursts, the last expiring effort, very generally, being the most
+magnificent.  Strokr gives no warning thumps, like the Great
+Geyser, and there is not the same roaring of steam accompanying the
+outbreak of the water."
+
+The same author thus describes an eruption of the Great Geyser,
+which occurred about two o'clock in the morning: "A violent
+concussion of the ground brought me and my companions to our feet.
+We rushed out of the tent in every condition of dishabille and were
+in time to see Geyser put forth his full strength.  Five strokes
+underground were the signal, then an overflow, wetting every side
+of the mound.  Presently a dome of water rose in the centre of the
+basin and fell again, immediately to be followed by a fresh bell,
+which sprang into the air fully forty feet high, accompanied by a
+roaring burst of steam.  Instantly the fountain began to play with
+the utmost violence, a column rushing up to the height of ninety or
+one hundred feet against the gray night sky, with mighty volumes of
+white steam cloud rolling after it and swept off by the breeze to
+fall in torrents of hot rain.  Jets and lines of water tore their
+way through the clouds, or leaped high above its domed mass.  The
+earth trembled and throbbed during the explosion, then the column
+sank, started up again, dropped once more, and seemed to be sucked
+back into the earth.  We ran to the basin, which was left dry, and
+looked down the bore at the water, which was bubbling at the depth
+of six feet."
+
+In the case of Strokr, the cause of this eruption is not difficult
+to understand.  The narrow part of the channel is choked up by the
+turf and the steam, and prevented from escaping.  Finally it gains
+such force as to drive out the obstacle with a violent explosion,
+just as a bottle of fermenting liquor may blow out the cork and
+discharge some of its contents.
+
+Geysers are somewhat abundant phenomena, existing in many parts of
+the earth, while striking examples of them are found in the widely
+separated regions of Iceland, New Zealand, Japan and the western
+United States.  In the volcanic region of New Zealand geysers and
+their associated hot springs are abundant.  It was to their action
+that we owed the famous white and pink terraces and the warm lake
+of Rotomahana which were ruined by the destructive eruption of
+Mount Tarawera, already described.
+
+
+GEYSERS OF THE UNITED STATES
+
+
+The United States is abundantly supplied with hot springs, but
+geysers, outside of the Yellowstone region, are found only in
+California and Nevada.  Those of California exist chiefly in Napa
+Valley, north of San Francisco, in a canon or defile.  Their waters
+are impregnated not with silica, but with sulphur, and they thus
+approach more nearly in their character to mud-volcanoes, whose
+ejections are, in like manner, much impregnated with that
+substance.  They are also, like them, collected in groups, there
+being no less than one hundred openings within a space of flat
+ground a mile square.  Owing to their number and proximity, their
+individual energy is nothing like so violent as that of the geysers
+of Iceland.  Their jets seldom rise higher than 20 or 30 feet; but
+so great a number playing within so confined a space produces an
+imposing effect.  The jets of boiling water issue with a loud noise
+from little conical mounds, around which the ground is merely a
+crust of sulphur.  When this crust is penetrated, the boiling water
+may be seen underneath.  The rocks in the neighborhood of these
+fountains are all corroded by the action of the sulphurous vapors.
+Nevertheless, within a distance of not more than 50 feet from them,
+trees grow without injury to their health.
+
+Few of these fountains, however, are regular geysers, most of them
+discharging only steam.  From the Steamboat Geyser this ascends to
+a height of from 50 to 100 feet, with a roar like that of the
+escape from a steamboat boiler.  Associated with the geysers are
+numerous hot springs, some clear, some turbid, and variously
+impregnated with iron, sulphur or alum.  In Nevada the Steamboat
+Springs, as they are designated, exist in Washoe Valley, east of
+the Virginian range.  They come nearer in character to the
+Yellowstone geysers, their waters depositing true geyserite, or
+silicious concretions.  The Volcano Springs, in Lauder County, are
+also true geysers, though of small importance.  The ground here is
+so thickly perforated by holes from which steam escapes that it
+looks like a cullender.
+
+
+THE YELLOWSTONE GEYSERS
+
+
+The most remarkable geyser country in the world, alike for the size
+and the number of its spouting fountains, is the Yellowstone region
+in the northwest part of the Territory of Wyoming, in the United
+States, which, by a special act of Congress, has been reserved as
+the Yellowstone National Park, exempt from settlement, purchase or
+pre-emption.  Here nearly every form of geyser and unintermittent
+hot spring occurs, with deposits of various kinds, silicious,
+calcareous, etc.  Of the hot springs, Dr. Peale enumerates 2,195,
+and considers that within the limits of the park--which is about 54
+miles by 62 miles, and includes 3,312 square miles--as many as
+3,000 actually exist.  The same geologist notes the existence of 71
+geysers in the area mentioned, though some of the number are only
+inferred to be spouting springs from the form of their basins and
+the character of the surrounding deposits.  Of this vast collection
+of still and eruptive springs, between which there seems every
+gradation, those which do not send water into the air are, owing to
+the magnificent cascades which they form, often quite as remarkable
+as those which take the shape of geysers.  The more striking of the
+latter may, however, be briefly mentioned.
+
+In the Gibbon Basin is a geyser of late origin.  In 1878 this
+consisted of two steam holes, roaring on the side of a hill, that
+looked as if they had recently burst through the surface; and the
+gully leading towards the ravine was at that date filled with sand,
+which appeared to have been poured out during an eruption.  Dead
+trees stood on the line of this sand floor, and others, with their
+bark still remaining, and even with their foliage not lost, were
+uprooted hard by, everything indicating that the "steamboat vent,"
+as it was called, was of recent formation.  In 1875 it had no
+existence, but in 1879 the spouting spring--which first opened, it
+is believed, on the 11th of August in the preceding year--had
+"settled down to business as a very powerful flowing geyser," with
+a double period; one eruption occurring every half hour, and
+projecting water to the height of 30 feet; the main eruption
+occurring every six or seven days, with long continued action, and
+a column of nearly 100 feet.
+
+The New Geyser in the same basin is also of quite recent origin.
+It consists of two fissures in the rock, in which the water boils
+vigorously.  But there is no mound, and the rocks of the fissure
+are just beginning to get a coating of the silicious geyserite
+deposited from the water, so that it cannot long have been
+spouting.  Again, in the Grotto Geyser--in the Upper Geyser Basin
+of Fire Hole River--the main or larger crater is hollowed into
+fantastic arches, beneath which are the grotto-like cavities from
+which it is named, which act as lateral orifices for the escape of
+water during an eruption.  It plays several times in the course of
+the twenty-four hours, and sends a column of water sixty feet high,
+the eruption lasting an hour.  As yet, however, the force of the
+water has not been sufficient, or of sufficiently long duration, to
+break through the arches covering the basin or crater.  The
+Excelsior--claimed to be the largest of its order, which sent water
+nearly 300 feet into the air at intervals of about five hours, and
+of such volume as to wash away bridges over small streams below--
+was not, until comparatively recent years, known as a specially
+powerful geyser.  But if it had for a time waned in importance, its
+immense crater, 330 feet in length and 200 feet at the widest part,
+shows that at a still earlier date it was a gigantic fountain.  In
+this deep pit, when the breeze wafted aside the clouds of steam
+constantly arising from its surface, the water could be seen
+seething 15 or 20 feet below the surrounding level.  Yet into the
+cauldron of boiling water a little stream of cold water, from the
+melting snow of the uplands, ran unceasingly.  Since 1888 this
+great geyser has been inactive.
+
+The Castle Geyser is so named on account of the fancied resemblance
+which its mound of white and grey deposit presents to the ruins of
+a feudal keep, the crater itself being placed on a cone or turret,
+which has a somewhat imposing appearance compared with the other
+geysers in the neighborhood.  It throws a column usually about
+fifty or sixty feet high, at intervals of two or three hours, but
+sometimes the discharge shoots up much higher.
+
+The Giant, in the Upper Geyser Basin, has a peculiar crater, which
+has been likened to the stump of a hollow sycamore tree of gigantic
+proportions, whose top has been wrenched off by a storm.  This
+curious cup is broken down at one side, as though it had been torn
+away during an eruption of more than ordinary violence, and on this
+side the visitor is able to look into the crater, if he can
+contrive to avoid the jets which are constantly spouted from it.
+The periods of rest which it takes are varied, an eruption often
+not occurring for several days at a time; yet when it breaks out it
+continues playing for more than three hours, with a volume of water
+reaching a height of from 130 to 140 feet.  In the interval little
+spouts are constantly in progess.  Mr. Stanley saw one eruption
+which he calculated to have shot a column of water to the height of
+more than 200 feet.  At first it seemed as though the geyser was
+only making a feint, the discharge which preceded the great one
+being merely repeated several times, followed by a cessation both
+of the rumbling noises and of the ejection of water.  But soon,
+after a premonitory cloud of steam, the geyser began to work in
+earnest, the column discharged rising higher and higher, until it
+reached the altitude mentioned.
+
+"At first it appeared to labor in raising the immense volume, which
+seemed loath to start on its heavenward tour; but it was with
+perfect ease that the stupendous column was held to its place, the
+water breaking into jets and returning in glittering showers to the
+basin.  The steam ascended in dense volumes for thousands of feet,
+when it was freighted on the wings of the winds and borne away in
+clouds.  The fearful rumble and confusion attending it were as the
+sound of distant artillery, the rushing of many horses to battle,
+or the roar of a fearful tornado.  It commenced to act at 2 P. M.,
+and continued for an hour and a half, the latter part of which it
+emitted little else than steam, rushing upward from its chambers
+below, of which, if controlled, there was enough to run an engine
+of wonderful power.  The waving to and fro of such a gigantic
+fountain, when the column is at its height,
+
+
+     'Tinselled o'er in robes of varying hues,'
+
+
+and glistening in the bright sunlight, which adorns it with the
+glowing colors of many a gorgeous rainbow, affords a spectacle so
+wonderful and grandly magnificent, so overwhelming to the mind,
+that the ablest attempt at description gives the reader who has
+never witnessed such a display but a feeble idea of its glory."
+
+
+A DESCRIPTION OF THE GEYSER AT WORK
+
+
+The only other geysers in this remarkable geyserland which we can
+spare room to notice are those known as the Giantess, the Beehive,
+and the Grand.  The Giantess sends a column of water to the height
+of 250 feet.  An eruption is usually divided into three periods--
+two preliminary efforts and a final one, divided from each other by
+intervals of between one and two hours, while the intervals of
+discharge are very long.  Sometimes it does not play for several
+weeks.  The Beehive, which is 400 feet from the Giantess, gets its
+name from the peculiar beehive-like cone which it has formed.  The
+eruption is also almost unique.  It is heralded by a slight escape
+of steam, which is followed by a column of steam and water,
+shooting to the height of over 200 feet.  The column is somewhat
+fan-shaped, but it does not fall in rain, the spray being
+evaporated and carried off as steam--if, indeed, there is not more
+steam than water in the column.  The duration of the discharge is
+between four and five minutes, and the interval between two
+eruptions from twenty-one to twenty-five hours.
+
+The Grand is one of the most important in the Upper Geyser basin.
+Yet, unlike the Grotto, the Giant, or the Old Faithful,--so called
+from its frequent and regular eruptions--it has no raised cone or
+crater, and a much less cavernous bowl than the Giantess and other
+geysers.  The column discharged ascends to the height of from
+eighty to two hundred feet, and the eruptions last from fifteen
+minutes to three-quarters of an hour, with intervals on an average
+of from seven to twenty hours.  This fountain is apparently very
+irregular in its action, though it is just possible that when the
+Yellowstone geysers have been more consecutively studied, it will
+be found that these seeming irregularities depend on the varying
+supplies of water at different times of the year.
+
+
+THE MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS
+
+
+The marvellous phenomena of the Yellowstone region are not confined
+to geyser action, hot springs of steady flow being, as above
+stated, exceedingly numerous.  Of these the most striking are those
+known as the Mammoth Hot Springs, whose waters find their way
+through underground passages, finally flowing from an opening as
+the "Boiling River," which empties into the Gardiner River.
+
+These springs are marvels of beauty.  Their terraced bowls, adorned
+with delicate fret-work, are among the finest specimens of Nature's
+handiwork in the world, and the colored waters themselves are
+startling in their brilliancy.  Red, pink, black, canary, green,
+saffron, blue, chocolate, and all their intermediate gradations are
+found here in exquisite harmony.  The springs rise in terraces of
+various heights and widths, having intermingled with their delicate
+shades chalk-like cliffs, soft and crumbly, these latter being the
+remains of springs from which the life and beauty have departed.
+The great spring is the largest in the country, the water flowing
+through three openings into a basin forty feet long by twenty-five
+feet wide.  From this the hot mineral waters drip over into lower
+basins, of gracefully curved and scalloped outline, the minerals
+deposited on the lips of the basin forming stalagmites of
+variegated hue, yielding a brilliant and beautiful effect.  The
+terraced basins bear a close resemblance to the former New Zealand
+pink and white terraces, and since the annihilation of the latter
+are the most charming examples in existence of this rare form of
+Nature's artistic handiwork.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The San Francisco Calamity
+
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