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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The San Francisco Calamity, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The San Francisco Calamity
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles Morris
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2006 [EBook #1560]
+Last Updated: November 16, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+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 who is not afraid of them,
+the sensation of one of these little tremblers is rather pleasant than
+otherwise, and the inhabitants grew so accustomed to them as rarely to
+let them disturb their equanimity.
+
+After 1900 the forces beneath the earth seemed to fall asleep. As it
+proved, they were only biding their time. The era was at hand when they
+were to declare themselves in all their mighty power and fall upon the
+devoted city with ruin in their grasp. But all this lay hidden in the
+secret casket of time, and the city kept up to its record as one of the
+liveliest and in many respects the most reckless and pleasure-loving
+on the continent, its people squandering their money with thoughtless
+improvidence and enjoying to the full all the good that life held out to
+them.
+
+On the 17th of April, 1906, the city was, as usual, gay, careless, busy,
+its people attending to business or pleasure with their ordinary vim as
+inclination led them, and not a soul dreaming of the horrors that lay in
+wait. They were as heedless of coming peril and death as the inhabitants
+of Sodom and Gomorrah before the rain of fire from heaven descended upon
+their devoted heads. This is not to say that they were doomed by God to
+destruction like these “cities of the plains.” We should more wisely
+say that the forces of ruin within the earth take no heed of persons or
+places. They come and go as the conditions of nature demand, and if man
+has built one of his cities across their destined track, its doom comes
+from its situation, not from the moral state of its inhabitants.
+
+
+THE GREAT DISASTER OF 1906.
+
+
+That night the people went, with their wonted equanimity, to their beds,
+rich and poor, sick and well alike. Did any of them dream of disaster in
+the air? It may be so, for often, as the poet tells us, “Coming events
+cast their shadows before.” But, forewarned by dreams or not, doubtless
+not a soul in the great city was prepared for the terrible event so
+near at hand, when, at thirteen minutes past five o’clock on the dread
+morning of the 18th, they felt their beds lifted beneath them as if by
+a Titan hand, heard the crash of falling walls and ceilings, and saw
+everything in their rooms tossed madly about, while through their
+windows came the roar of an awful disaster from the city without.
+
+It was a matter not of minutes, but of seconds, yet on all that coast,
+long the prey of the earthquake, no shock like it had ever been felt,
+no such sudden terror awakened, no such terrible loss occasioned as in
+those few fearful seconds. Again and again the trembling of the earth
+passed by, three quickly repeated shocks, and the work of the demon of
+ruin was done. People woke with a start to find themselves flung from
+their beds to the floor, many of them covered with the fragments of
+broken ceilings, many lost among the ruins of falling floors and walls,
+many pinned in agonizing suffering under the ruins of their houses,
+which had been utterly wrecked in those fatal seconds. Many there were,
+indeed, who had been flung to quick if not to instant death under their
+ruined homes.
+
+Those seconds of the reign of the elemental forces had turned the
+gayest, most careless city on the continent into a wreck which no words
+can fitly describe. Those able to move stumbled in wild panic across the
+floors of their heaving houses, regardless of clothing, of treasures, of
+everything but the mad instinct for safety, and rushed headlong into the
+streets, to find that the earth itself had yielded to the energy of its
+frightful interior forces and had in places been torn and rent like the
+houses themselves. New terrors assailed the fugitives as fresh tremors
+shook the solid ground, some of them strong enough to bring down
+shattered walls and chimneys, and bring back much of the mad terror of
+the first fearful quake. The heaviest of these came at eight o’clock.
+While less forcible than that which had caused the work of destruction,
+it added immensely to the panic and dread of the people and put many of
+the wanderers to flight, some toward the ferry, the great mass in the
+direction of the sand dunes and Golden Gate Park.
+
+The spectacle of the entire population of a great city thus roused
+suddenly from slumber by a fierce earthquake shock and sent flying into
+the streets in utter panic, where not buried under falling walls or
+tumbling debris, is one that can scarcely be pictured in words, and can
+be given in any approach to exact realization only in the narratives of
+those who passed through its horrors and experienced the sensations to
+which it gave rise. Some of the more vivid of these personal accounts
+will be presented later, but at present we must confine ourselves to a
+general statement of the succession of events.
+
+The earthquake proved but the beginning and much the least destructive
+part of the disaster. In many of the buildings there were fires, banked
+for the night, but ready to kindle the inflammable material hurled down
+upon them by the shock. In others were live electric wires which the
+shock brought in contact with woodwork. The terror-stricken fugitives
+saw, here and there, in all directions around them, the alarming vision
+of red flames curling upward and outward, in gleaming contrast to the
+white light of dawn just showing in the eastern sky. Those lurid gleams
+climbed upward in devouring haste, and before the sun had fairly risen
+a dozen or more conflagrations were visible in all sections of the
+business part of the city, and in places great buildings broke with
+startling suddenness into flame, which shot hotly high into the air.
+
+While the mass of the people were stunned by the awful suddenness of the
+disaster and stood rooted to the ground or wandered helplessly about in
+blank dismay, there were many alert and self-possessed among them who
+roused themselves quickly from their dismay and put their energies
+to useful work. Some of these gave themselves to the work of rescue,
+seeking to save the injured from their perilous situation and draw
+the bodies of the dead from the ruins under which they lay. Those base
+wretches to whom plunder is always the first thought were as quickly
+engaged in seeking for spoil in edifices laid open to their plundering
+hands by the shock. Meanwhile the glare of the flames brought the
+fire-fighters out in hot haste with their engines, and up from the
+military station at the Presidio, on the Golden Gate side of the city,
+came at double quick a force of soldiers, under the efficient command of
+General Funston, of Cuban and Philippine fame. These trained troops were
+at once put on guard over the city, with directions to keep the best
+order possible, and with strict command to shoot all looters at sight.
+Funston recognized at the start the necessity of keeping the lawless
+element under control in such an exigency as that which he had to face.
+Later in the day the First Regiment of California National Guards was
+called out and put on duty, with similar orders.
+
+
+RESCUERS AND FIRE-FIGHTERS.
+
+
+The work of fighting the fire was the first and greatest duty to be
+performed, but from the start it proved a very difficult, almost a
+hopeless, task. With fierce fires burning at once in a dozen or more
+separate places, the fire department of the city would have been
+inadequate to cope with the demon of flame even under the best of
+circumstances. As it was, they found themselves handicapped at the start
+by a nearly total lack of water. The earthquake had disarranged and
+broken the water mains and there was scarcely a drop of water to be had,
+so that the engines proved next to useless. Water might be drawn from
+the bay, but the centre of the conflagration was a mile or more away,
+and this great body of water was rendered useless in the stringent
+exigency.
+
+The only hope that remained to the authorities was to endeavor to check
+the progress of the flames by the use of dynamite, blowing up buildings
+in the line of progress of the conflagration. This was put in practice
+without loss of time, and soon the thunder-like roar of the explosions
+began, blasts being heard every few minutes, each signifying that some
+building had been blown to atoms. But over the gaps thus made the flames
+leaped, and though the brave fellows worked with a desperation and
+energy of the most heroic type, it seemed as if all their labors were
+to be without avail, the terrible fire marching on as steadily as if a
+colony of ants had sought to stay its devastating progress.
+
+
+THE HORROR OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+It was with grief and horror that the mass of the people gazed on this
+steady march of the army of ruin. They were seemingly half dazed by the
+magnitude of the disaster, strangely passive in the face of the ruin
+that surrounded them, as if stunned by despair and not yet awakened to
+a realization of the horrors of the situation. Among these was the
+possibility of famine. No city at any time carries more than a few days’
+supply of provisions, and with the wholesale districts and warehouse
+regions invaded by the flames the shortage of food made itself apparent
+from the start. Water was even more difficult to obtain, the supply
+being nearly all cut off. Those who possessed supplies of food and
+liquids of any kind in many cases took advantage of the opportunity to
+advance their prices. Thus an Associated Press man was obliged to pay
+twenty-five cents for a small glass of mineral water, the only kind of
+drink that at first was to be had, while food went up at the same rate,
+bakers frequently charging as much as a dollar for a loaf. As for the
+expressmen and cabmen, their charges were often practically prohibitory,
+as much as fifty dollars being asked for the conveyance of a passenger
+to the ferry. Policemen were early stationed at some of the retail
+shops, regulating the sale and the price of food, and permitting only
+a small portion to be sold to each purchaser, so as to prevent a few
+persons from exhausting the supply.
+
+The fire, the swaying and tottering walls, the frequent dynamite
+explosions, each followed by a crashing shower of stones and bricks,
+rendered the streets very unsafe for pedestrians, and all day long
+the flight of residents from the city went on, growing quickly to the
+dimensions of a panic. The ferryboats were crowded with those who wished
+to leave the city, and a constant stream of the homeless, carrying such
+articles as they had rescued from their homes, was kept up all day
+long, seeking the sand dunes, the parks and every place uninvaded by
+the flames. Before night Golden Gate Park and the unbuilt districts
+adjoining on the ocean side presented the appearance of a tented city,
+shelter of many kinds being improvised from bedding and blankets, and
+the people settling into such sparse comfort as these inadequate means
+provided.
+
+A strange feature of the disaster was a rush to the banks by people who
+wished to get their money and flee from the seemingly doomed city. The
+fire front was yet distant from these institutions, which were destined
+to fall a prey to the flames, and all that morning lines of dishevelled
+and half-frantic men stood before the banks on Montgomery and Sansome
+Streets, braving in their thirst for money the smoke and falling embers
+and beating in wild anxiety upon the doors. Their effort was vain; the
+doors remained closed; finally the police drove these people away, and
+the banks went on with the work of saving their valuables. As for the
+people who wildly fled toward the ferries, in spite of the fact that
+ten blocks of fire, as the day went on, stopped all egress in that
+direction, it became necessary for them to be driven back by the police
+and the troops, and they were finally forced to seek safety in the
+sands. And thus, with incident manifold, went on that fatal Wednesday,
+the first day of the dread disaster.
+
+
+OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
+
+
+It is important here to give the official record of the earthquake
+shocks, as given by the scientists. Professor George Davidson, of the
+University of California, says of them:
+
+“The earthquake came from north to south, and the only description I am
+able to give of its effect is that it seemed like a terrier shaking a
+rat. I was in bed, but was awakened by the first shock. I began to count
+the seconds as I went towards the table where my watch was, being able
+through much practice closely to approximate the time in that manner.
+The shock came at 5.12 o’clock. The first sixty seconds were the most
+severe. From that time on it decreased gradually for about thirty
+seconds. There was then the slightest perceptible lull. Then the shock
+continued for sixty seconds longer, being slighter in degree in this
+minute than in any part of the preceding minute and a half. There were
+two slight shocks afterwards which I did not time. At 8.14 o’clock
+I recorded a shock of five seconds’ duration, and one at 4.15 of two
+seconds. There were slight shocks which I did not record at 5.17 and at
+5.27. At 6.50 P. M. there was a sharp shock of several seconds.”
+
+Professor A. O. Louschner, of the students’ observatory of the
+University of California, thus records his observations:
+
+“The principal part of the earthquake came in two sections, the first
+series of vibrations lasting about forty seconds. The vibrations
+diminished gradually during the following ten seconds, and then occurred
+with renewed vigor for about twenty-five seconds more. But even at
+noon the disturbance had not subsided, as slight shocks are recorded
+at frequent intervals on the seismograph. The motion was from
+south-southeast to north-northwest.
+
+“The remarkable feature of this earthquake, aside from its intensity,
+was its rotary motion. As seen from the print, the sum total of all
+displacements represents a very regular ellipse, and some of the
+lines representing the earth’s motion can be traced along the whole
+circumference. The result of observation indicates that our heaviest
+shocks are in the direction south-southeast to north-northwest. In that
+respect the records of the three heaviest earthquakes agree entirely.
+But they have several other features in common. One of these is
+that while the displacements are very large the vibration period is
+comparatively slow, amounting to about one second in the last two big
+earthquakes.”
+
+If we seek to discover the actual damage done by the earthquake, the
+fact stands out that the fire followed so close upon it that the traces
+of its ravages were in many cases obliterated. So many buildings in the
+territory of the severest shock fell a prey to the flames or to dynamite
+that the actual work of the earth forces was made difficult and in
+many places impossible to discover. This fact is likely to lead to
+considerable dispute and delay when the question of insurance adjustment
+comes up, many of the insurance companies confining their risk to fire
+damage and claiming exemption from liability in the case of damage due
+to earthquake.
+
+Among the chief victims of the earth-shake was the costly and showy City
+Hall, with its picturesque dome standing loftily above the structure.
+This dome was left still erect, but only as a skeleton might stand, with
+its flesh gone and its bare ribs exposed to the searching air. Its roof,
+its smaller towers came tumbling down in frightful disarray, and the
+once proud edifice is 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
+Committee 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, 1906.
+
+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 Franciscan 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 paralyzed 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 preemption. 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 progress. 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 EBook of The San Francisco Calamity, by Various
+
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire, by Various
+    </title>
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+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The San Francisco Calamity, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The San Francisco Calamity
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles Morris
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2006 [EBook #1560]
+Last Updated: November 16, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY <br /> BY EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      A Complete and Accurate Account of the Fearful Disaster which <br />
+      Visited the Great City and the Pacific Coast, the Reign of Panic and <br />
+      Lawlessness, the Plight of 300,000 Homeless People and the World-wide
+      <br /> Rush to the Rescue.
+    </h2>
+    <h2>
+      TOLD BY EYE WITNESSES
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      INCLUDING GRAPHIC AND RELIABLE ACCOUNTS OF ALL GREAT EARTHQUAKES AND <br />
+      VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE WORLD&rsquo;S HISTORY, AND SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS
+      <br /> OF THEIR CAUSES.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      EDITED BY CHARLES MORRIS, LL. D.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Earthquake and famine, fire and sudden death&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are fond of boasting in this latter day of man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth,&rdquo;
+       and the blood &ldquo;tells&rdquo; when suffering comes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE PUBLISHERS. <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_TOC"> CONTENTS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <big><b>THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY BY
+        EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE</b></big> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_TOC" id="link2H_TOC">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CONTENTS
+    </h2>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER I. <br /> SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER II. <br /> THE DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER III. <br /> FIGHTING FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER IV. <br /> THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER V. <br /> THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER VI. <br /> FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER VII. <br /> THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER VIII. <br /> WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER IX. <br /> DISASTER SPREADS OVER THE GOLDEN STATE <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER X. <br /> ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XI. <br /> THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XII. <br /> LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XIII. <br /> PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XIV. <br /> THE EARTHQUAKE WAVE FELT AROUND THE WORLD <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XV. <br /> VESUVIUS DEVASTATES THE REGION OF NAPLES <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XVI. <br /> THE GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XVII. <br /> THE CHARLESTON AND OTHER EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED
+        STATES <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XVIII. <br /> THE VOLCANO AND THE EARTHQUAKE, EARTH&rsquo;S DEMONS OF
+        DESTRUCTION <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XIX. <br /> THE THEORIES OF VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XX. <br /> THE ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXI. <br /> THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXII. <br /> ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXIII. <br /> SKAPTER JOKULL AND HECLA, THE GREAT ICELANDIC
+        VOLCANOES <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXIV. <br /> VOLCANOES OF THE PHILIPPINES AND OTHER PACIFIC
+        ISLANDS <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXV. <br /> THE WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS AND KILAUEA&rsquo;S LAKE OF
+        FIRE <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXVI. <br /> POPOCATEPETL AND OTHER VOLCANOES OF MEXICO AND
+        CENTRAL AMERICA <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXVII. <br /> THE TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXVIII. <br /> MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH IN 1902 <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXIX. <br /> ST. VINCENT ISLAND AND MONT SOUFRIERE IN 1812 <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        CHAPTER XXX. <br /> SUBMARINE VOLCANOES AND THEIR WORK OF ISLAND-BUILDING
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        MUD VOLCANOES, GEYSERS AND HOT SPRINGS <br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY BY EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      San Francisco and Its Terrific Earthquake.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s chief agents of
+      destruction must be given.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EARLY DAYS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE CHARACTER OF THE CITY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the vicinity of Telegraph Hill are Russian and Nob Hills, the latter
+      getting its peculiar title from the fact that the wealthy &ldquo;nobs,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s chief attractions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;or a &ldquo;temblor,&rdquo; to use the
+      Spanish name&mdash;it is the rock foundation that is disturbed, not the
+      sand, which, indeed, serves to lessen the effect of the earth tremor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CITY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;made ground.&rdquo;
+       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&mdash;a long walk for
+      any man&mdash;the water had been driven back by a &ldquo;filling-in&rdquo; process.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;for instance,
+      the Grand Opera House was built over the bed of St. Anne&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although the earthquake wrecked the business and residential portions of
+      the city alike, on the hills the land did not sink. All &ldquo;made ground&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE BANE OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were the heaviest shocks. On the other hand, light shocks, as above
+      said, have been frequent. Probably the sensible quakes have averaged three
+      or four a year. These are usually tremblings lasting from ten seconds to a
+      minute and just heavy enough to wake light sleepers or to shake dishes
+      about on the shelves. Tourists and newcomers are generally alarmed by
+      these phenomena, but old Californians have learned to take them
+      philosophically. To one who is not afraid of them, the sensation of one of
+      these little tremblers is rather pleasant than otherwise, and the
+      inhabitants grew so accustomed to them as rarely to let them disturb their
+      equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;cities of the plains.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE GREAT DISASTER OF 1906.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Coming events
+      cast their shadows before.&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      RESCUERS AND FIRE-FIGHTERS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE HORROR OF THE PEOPLE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;clock I recorded a shock of
+      five seconds&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Professor A. O. Louschner, of the students&rsquo; observatory of the University
+      of California, thus records his observations:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FREAKS OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One observer states that the earthquake appeared to be very irregular in
+      its course. He tells us that &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Skirting the shore northwest from the big ferry building&mdash;which was
+      so seriously injured that it will have to be rebuilt&mdash;the first thing
+      observed was the extraordinary irregularity of the earthquake&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SKYSCRAPERS EARTHQUAKE PROOF.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Golden Gate Park came news of the total destruction of the large
+      building covering a portion of the children&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Demon of Fire Invades the Stricken City.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE RESISTLESS MARCH OF THE FLAMES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE CARE OF THE WOUNDED.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;father,
+      mother and three children&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRE ATTACKS THE MINT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Late on Wednesday evening the fire front crept close up to Mechanics&rsquo; 
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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&rsquo;s greatest thoroughfare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo; Exchange,
+      and the great Mills Building, occupying almost an entire block.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE PALACES ON NOB&rsquo;S HILL.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the centre of San Francisco rises the aristocratic elevation known as
+      Nob&rsquo;s Hill, on which the early millionaires built their homes, and on
+      which stood the city&rsquo;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
+      &lsquo;70&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the &ldquo;big four&rdquo; of the railroad magnates&mdash;Stanford, Hopkins,
+      Huntington and Crocker&mdash;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&rsquo;s Hill from the principal section
+      of the wholesale district.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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 Committee
+      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, 1906.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A VIVID FIRE PICTURE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;clock, and it is just impossible to describe
+      the scenes that met my eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wednesday&rsquo;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&rsquo;s greatest
+      buildings succumbed to the flames and sank in red ruin before their eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE LANDMARKS CONSUMED.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s and the Grand Opera House, on Missouri
+      Street, where the Conried Opera Company had just opened for a two weeks&rsquo; 
+      opera season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Jinks&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the great losses was that of St. Ignatius&rsquo; 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&rsquo; 
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE FIRE UNDER CONTROL.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s Hill, on which stood many costly homes of recent construction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Friday night the fire that had worked its way from Nob&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Fighting the Flames With Dynamite.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Barbary Coast,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIGHTING THE FLAMES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FIRE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s supply of dynamite had
+      given out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more dynamite! No more dynamite!&rdquo; screamed a fireman as he ran up
+      Ellis Street past the doomed Flood building at two o&rsquo;clock on Friday
+      morning, tears standing in his smoke-smirched eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more dynamite! O God! no more dynamite! We are lost!&rdquo; moaned the
+      throng that heard his despairing words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A NEW SUPPLY OF EXPLOSIVES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The firemen, therefore, although exhausted from over twenty-four hours&rsquo; 
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reply of a grizzled fire engineer standing at O&rsquo;Farrell Street and Van
+      Ness Avenue, beside a blackened engine, may not have been as terse as that
+      of Hugo&rsquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE SAVERS OF THE CITY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unless some second malicious miracle of nature should reverse the
+      direction of the west wind, by nine o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain MacBride&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s Island,
+      quietly pursuing its military routine, should escape without a qualm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Reign of Destruction and Devastation
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AN EDITOR&rsquo;S NARRATIVE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;the laugh unfinished on
+      our lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;a laborer in overalls on his way to the Union
+      Iron Works, with a dinner pail on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was what came next&mdash;the fire. It shot up everywhere. The fierce
+      wave of destruction had carried a flaming torch with it&mdash;agony, death
+      and a flaming torch. It was just as if some fire demon was rushing from
+      place to place with such a torch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      WRECK AND RUIN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      San Francisco&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE RUIN OF CHINATOWN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. W. Overton, of Los Angeles, thus describes the Chinatown dens and the
+      revelations made by the earthquake and the flames:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Strange is the scene where San Francisco&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LOSS TO ART AND SCIENCE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE DANGER FROM THIRST.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is a story told by one observer of incidents in the city during the
+      fire:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;The Lord sent it, the Lord!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      HOW LOOTING WAS HINDERED.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I request all citizens to remain at home from darkness until daylight
+      every night until order is restored.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      STORIES BY SIGHTSEERS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One onlooker says: &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another observer tells of an instance of this summary justice that came
+      under his eyes:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take warning!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Those of the ghouls who saw this were likely to desist from their
+      detestable work, unless they valued spoils more than life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Willis Ames, a Salt Lake City man, tells of the kind of justice done to
+      thieves, as it came under his observation:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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. &lsquo;Here is where you get what is
+      coming to you,&rsquo; said one of the soldiers, and with that he put a bullet
+      through the ghoul. The diamonds were found in the man&rsquo;s mouth afterward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He further states: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEATH FOR SLIGHT OFFENSE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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&rsquo; committees and to stricter regulation of the
+      soldiers in the use of their weapons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Panic Flight of a Homeless Host.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE PANIC IN THE SLUMS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Barbary Coast,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Tenderloin&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Barbary Coast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      point brought some semblance of order out of the confusion of panic
+      terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE FLIGHT FOR SAFETY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;everything.
+      Wagons could not be hired except by paying the most extortionate rates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank Heaven for the open space of the Presidio and for Golden Gate
+      Park!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EXODUS FROM THE BURNING CITY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE WILD RUSH TO THE FERRIES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SCENES OF HUMOR AND PATHOS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Bill; where are you living now?&rdquo; asked one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see that tree over there&mdash;that big one?&rdquo; said Bill. &ldquo;Well, you
+      climb that. My room is on the third branch to the left,&rdquo; and they went
+      away laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another observer tells these incidents of the flight: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s one great treasure on earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;clock. He vowed he would never stop at that house again, a vow he might
+      well keep, as the house is no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one room where two girls were dressing the floor gave way and one of
+      them disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you, Mary?&rdquo; screamed her companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;m in the parlor,&rdquo; said Mary calmly, as she wriggled out of the mass
+      of plaster and mortar below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s eyes were opened to
+      the walls of its tent home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God sends earthquakes and babies,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but He might, in His mercy,
+      cut out sending them both together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were many pathetic incidents. Families had been sadly separated in
+      the confusion of the flight. Husbands had lost their wives&mdash;wives had
+      lost their husbands, and anxious mothers sought some word of their
+      children&mdash;the stories were very much the same. One pretty looking
+      woman in an expensive tailor-made costume badly torn, had lost her little
+      girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think anything has happened to her,&rdquo; said she, hopefully. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A well-known young lady of good social position, when asked where she had
+      spent the night, replied: &ldquo;On a grave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank God, I thank Uncle Sam and the people of this nation,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;We have lost our home and all we had, but we have never
+      been hungry nor without shelter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The spirit of &lsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s lots of others in the same boat,&rdquo; as he turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going to build?&rdquo; repeated one man, who had lost family and home inside of
+      two hours. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; showing his hands, &ldquo;and I guess I&rsquo;m game to do it over again.
+      Build again, well I wonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would know me anywhere,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE GOLDEN GATE CAMP.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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 &ldquo;Those
+      interested,&rdquo; &ldquo;Friends and relatives,&rdquo; or to some individual, telling of
+      the whereabouts of refugees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One notice read: &ldquo;Mrs. Rogers will find her husband in Isidora Park,
+      Oakland. W. H. Rogers.&rdquo; Another style was this: &ldquo;Sue, Harry and Will
+      Sollenberger all safe. Call at No. 250 Twenty-seventh Avenue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were thousands of these dramatic notices on this billboard, and one
+      larger than the others read: &ldquo;Death notices can be left here; get as many
+      as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;I am looking for I. E. Hall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;No. 40 Bush Street camp.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Camp
+      Thankful,&rdquo; the one next to it was placarded &ldquo;Camp Glory&rdquo; and a few feet
+      farther on an Irishman had posted the sign &ldquo;Camp Hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;clock, just
+      when the day&rsquo;s business had started in the East. It will long be preserved
+      in the records of the company. This was the dispatch:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;m going to get out of office, as we have had a little shake every few
+      minutes, and it&rsquo;s me for the simple life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;R., San Francisco, 5.50 A. M.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. R.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;re on the job, and are going to try and stick,&rdquo; was the way the first
+      message came from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was what came over the wire a little later:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This message came in jerks: &ldquo;Fire still coming up Market Street. It&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause, then: &ldquo;We are beginning to pack up our instruments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Instruments are all packed up, and we are ready to run,&rdquo; 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&rsquo; language caught the word &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; and then the
+      ticks stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m back in the building, but they are dynamiting the building next door,
+      and I&rsquo;ve got to get out,&rdquo; was the way his message was translated. Dynamite
+      ended the story, and the Postal&rsquo;s domicile in San Francisco ceased to
+      exist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Facing Famine and Praying for Relief.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bread is 10 cents a loaf in this shop,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man with a loaf of bread in his hand ran up to a policeman on Washington
+      Street. &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this man is trying to charge me a dollar for
+      this loaf of bread. Is that fair?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it to me,&rdquo; said the policeman. He broke off one end of it and stuck
+      it in his mouth. &ldquo;I am hungry myself,&rdquo; he said when he had his mouth
+      clear. &ldquo;Take the rest of it. It&rsquo;s appropriated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE FOOD QUESTION URGENT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Smash the
+      stores open,&rdquo; ordered the Mayor, &ldquo;and guard them.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WATER FOR THE THIRSTY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE CAMPS IN THE PARKS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+      &ldquo;Yesterday,&rdquo; says an observer, &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      COMEDY AND PATHOS IN THE BREAD LINE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have money,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;&lsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was only one of thousands like her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out on Broderick street, near the Panhandle, a piano sounded. It was nigh
+      ten o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A youth with a shock of red hair sat on a cracker box and pecked at the
+      ivories. &ldquo;Home Ain&rsquo;t Nothing Like This&rdquo; was thrummed from the rusting
+      wires with true vaudeville dash and syncopation. &ldquo;Bill Bailey,&rdquo; &ldquo;Good Old
+      Summer Time,&rdquo; &ldquo;Dixie&rdquo; and &ldquo;In Toyland&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s brogan. They say
+      that as she walked she careened like a bark-rigged ship before a typhoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want a can of condensed cream, so I can feed my baby and my dog,&rdquo; said
+      a large, florid-faced woman in a gaudy kimono, &ldquo;and I don&rsquo;t care for
+      crackers, but you can throw in some potted chicken if you have it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s in that bottle over there?&rdquo; queried the next applicant. &ldquo;Tomato
+      ketchup? Well, of all the luck! Say, young man, just give me three.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little gray-haired woman in an India shawl peered timorously through the
+      window. &ldquo;Just a little bit of anything you may have handy, please,&rdquo; she
+      whispered, and she cast a careful eye about to see of any of her neighbors
+      had recognized her standing there in the &ldquo;bread line.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yesterday, at the Western Union office,&rdquo; says one writer, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t live anywhere,&rdquo; was the answer given in many cases when the
+      applicant for a license was asked the locality of his residence. &ldquo;I used
+      to live in San Francisco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EXODUS FROM SAN FRANCISCO.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the start this was one of the features of the situation. Down Market
+      Street, once San Francisco&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; Relief Committee supplied them with food.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WORSHIP IN THE OPEN AIR.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave, oh,
+      leave me not alone, still support and comfort me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All my trust on Thee is stayed; all my help from Thee I bring; Cover my
+      defenseless head with the shadow of Thy wing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us pray,&rdquo; 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&mdash;and nothing left to him
+      but an unshaken faith in his Creator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Frightful Loss of Life and Wealth.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;On my way down Market Street,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s wagon, all bloody,
+      with crushed skulls, broken limbs and bloody faces.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another statement is to the effect that &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      ESTIMATES OF THE DEATH LIST.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BURYING THE DEAD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this connection the following stories are told:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. George V. Schramm, a young medical graduate, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I was passing down Market Street with a new-found friend, an
+      automobile came rushing along with two soldiers in it. My doctor&rsquo;s badge
+      protected me, but the soldiers invited my companion, a husky six-footer,
+      to get into the automobile. He said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t want to ride, and have plenty of business to attend to.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once more they invited him, and he refused. One of the soldiers pointed a
+      gun at him and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;We need such men as you to save women and children and to help fight the
+      fire.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;I give you time to git off those kid gloves, and then hustle, damn you,
+      hustle!&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s shop just after the quake. The fire
+      drove her out with her charge, and it was placed in Mechanics&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VICTIMS TAKEN FROM THE RUINS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;, it is said, were killed, though
+      probably this is an overestimate. One observer tells us that &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Water, water, for God&rsquo;s sake get me some water,&rdquo; was the cry
+      that struck into thousands of souls of San Francisco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE FREE USE OF RIFLES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A citizen tells us that &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Go home.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;We&rsquo;ve shot about 300 people for one thing or another,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;Now,
+      dodge trouble. Git!&rsquo; That ended the expedition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE LOSS IN WEALTH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LOOTERS IN CHINATOWN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Wonderful Record of Thrilling Escapes.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the ferry,
+      where men and women fought like infuriated animals, bent on escape from a
+      fiery furnace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May God be merciful to the women and children in this land of desolation
+      and despair!&rdquo; she wrote on April 21st.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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: &lsquo;Here I am, my pretties; come
+      here, come here.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I took her by the hand and led her down to the grass at the foot of the
+      hill. A man&mdash;her husband&mdash;received her from me and wept as he
+      said: &lsquo;She is calling our three little children. She thinks the sounds of
+      the ocean waves are the voices of our lost darlings.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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: &lsquo;Have you seen anything of our lost
+      babies?&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Last night a soldier seized me by the arm and cried: &lsquo;If you are a woman
+      with a woman&rsquo;s heart, go in there and do whatever you can.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;In there&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;There have been many such cases,&rsquo; said the medical student. &lsquo;Many of the
+      mothers have died&mdash;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.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Ah, Julia, dear, you must stay to luncheon,&rsquo; she said, extending her
+      fingers just as though she stood in her own drawing-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      MISERY DRIVES SOME INSANE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;My mistress is not in her right mind.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Where is her husband?&rsquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;He has gone to try to get some food,&rsquo; said the girl. &lsquo;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.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;She must have suffered,&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;to cause such a mental derangement.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The girl&rsquo;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&rsquo;s richest merchants, and that the girl whom she succored
+      had been employed as a servant in her father&rsquo;s household. The girl&rsquo;s back
+      had been injured by a fall, and her mistress&rsquo; fair hands were trying to
+      make her well again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Bosse, alle same, catchee match?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My escort gave him the desired article, and the Chinaman made a fire of
+      his pile of twigs. &lsquo;Why are you making a fire, John?&rsquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Bleakfast,&rsquo; he replied laconically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked him where his food might be, and he gave us a quick glance of
+      suspicion as he said briefly, &lsquo;No sabbe.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We stood watching him, evidently to his great distress, and finally he
+      made bold to say, &lsquo;You no stand lound, bosse. You go &lsquo;way.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s Friday Night Cotillion
+      balls in the Palace Hotel&rsquo;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 &lsquo;table&rsquo; 
+      with the food as it became ready to serve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The father of the family laughed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      SOCIETY FOLKS COMPELLED TO CAMP.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;that is Charlie&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;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.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      G. A. Raymond, who was in the Palace Hotel when the earthquake occurred,
+      says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I met a Catholic priest, and he said: &lsquo;We must get to the ferry.&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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: &lsquo;This fire must be put out! The city must be
+      saved!&rsquo; It was awful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      TERRIBLE SCENE AT THE FERRY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      GREAT SINGERS ESCAPE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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. &lsquo;My God, it&rsquo;s an earthquake!&rsquo; he yelled.
+      &lsquo;Get your things and run!&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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: &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t mention it. Them Chinks would steal
+      the money off a dead man&rsquo;s eyes.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They say that Rossi, though almost in tears, was heard trying his voice at
+      a corner near the Palace Hotel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TEDDY&rsquo;S PICTURE PROVES &ldquo;OPEN SESAME.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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: &lsquo;With kindest regards from Theodore
+      Roosevelt.&rsquo; I showed them this, and one of them said: &lsquo;If you are a friend
+      of Teddy, come in and make yourself at home.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;toiling as men never toiled before to save life and relieve
+      distress of all kinds&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Disaster Spreads Over the Golden State
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE DESTRUCTION OF SANTA ROSA.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;California
+      wizard,&rdquo; but these fortunately escaped injury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Encina Hall and the inner quadrangle were practically uninjured, and the
+      bulk of the books, collections and apparatus escaped damage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EARTHQUAKE AT OTHER CITIES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Los Panos several buildings were wrecked, causing damage to the extent
+      of $75,000, but no lives were lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Loma Prieta the earthquake caused a mine house to slip down the side of
+      a mountain, ten men being buried in the ruins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AT THE STATE UNIVERSITY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      All America and Canada to the Rescue
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Individual contributions of $100,000 were common. In addition to John D.
+      Rockefeller&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      RIGHT OF WAY FOR FOOD TRAINS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rapidity with which the various relief funds in every city grew was
+      almost magical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The United States Government at once voted a contribution of $1,000,000,
+      and government supplies were rushed from every post in the West.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CARGOES OF SUPPLIES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was urgent need of haste. On Friday, while the flames were still
+      making their way onward, General Funston telegraphed: &ldquo;Famine seems
+      inevitable.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE SYMPATHY OF THE PEOPLE AWAKES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For San Francisco,&rdquo; he said, as he turned toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What name?&rdquo; asked the teller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put it down to &lsquo;cash,&rsquo;&rdquo; he answered, as he vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; time the relief fund
+      was estimated at $18,000,000, and the good work was still going on&mdash;in
+      less profusion, it is true, but still the spirit was alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FOREIGN OFFERS OF AID.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s abundant response. To the
+      Hamburg-Line which offered $25,000, the following letter was sent:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ENTERPRISE IN SAN FRANCISCO.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;one
+      touch of nature makes the whole world akin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s liners were pitched about four feet to the south, but were
+      uninjured and only need to be replaced in position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This dictum of Chief of Police Dinan&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE PROBLEM OF THE CHINESE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In conclusion of this chapter it is advisable to refer to the situation of
+      one of the elements of San Francisco&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      San Francisco of the Past
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The story of San Francisco&rsquo;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&rsquo;s dream&mdash;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 &ldquo;shacks,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The streets that now lay squares from the water were then at the water&rsquo;s
+      edge and batteaus brought cargoes ashore. Long wharves&mdash;one was for
+      years called the Long Wharf even after there were others built much longer&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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
+      &ldquo;Argonaut,&rdquo; or whose father was an Argonaut, found no attractions in the
+      steady labor of farming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 &ldquo;&lsquo;Frisco.&rdquo; The enterprise of the second edition
+      pioneers quickly transformed the State and city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AGRICULTURE BRINGS NEW WEALTH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luxury was startling. San Francisco&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;men had not become mere machines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A PECULIAR YET DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A MIXTURE OF RACES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;smelting pot of the races&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Life in the Metropolis of the Pacific
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE &lsquo;FRISCO RESTAURANTS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The country all about produced everything that a cook needs, and that in
+      abundance&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE FAMOUS POODLE DOG.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;or stood&mdash;on the
+      edge of the Tenderloin in a modern five-story building. And it typified a
+      certain spirit that there was in San Francisco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;and the fourth floor&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were others as famous in their way&mdash;Zinkaud&rsquo;s, where, at one
+      time, every one went after the theatre, and Tate&rsquo;s, which has lately
+      bitten into that trade; the Palace Grill, much like the grills of Eastern
+      hotels, except for the price; Delmonico&rsquo;s, which ran the Poodle Dog neck
+      and neck in its own line, and many others, humbler, but great at the
+      price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE BOHEMIAN CLUB.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &lsquo;Frisco&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within its walls the possession of dollars was a bar rather than an &ldquo;open
+      sesame,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE WICKEDEST AND GAYEST.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not believe in driving her vice from the open where it could be
+      recognized and controlled&mdash;prevented from doing any more harm than it
+      was possible to stop&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Because I like to have the men
+      admire me,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no end of enjoyments. After the theatre they would go to
+      Zinkaud&rsquo;s, Tate&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AN ALL-NIGHT TOWN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The city never went to sleep altogether. It was &ldquo;an all-night&rdquo; town. Few
+      of the restaurants ever closed, none of the saloons did. Always during the
+      whole twenty-four hours of the day there was &ldquo;something doing&rdquo; in the
+      Tenderloin. No hour of the night was ever free of revelry. It was
+      marvelous how they kept it up. The average San Franciscan 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;San Francisco, oh, my San Francisco, I am leaving
+      thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;San
+      Francisco the captivating, the maddest, gayest, liveliest and most
+      rollicking in the country&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Plans to Rebuild San Francisco.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;before the Gringo came.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of San Francisco&rsquo;s charms was in its defiance of precedent. There were
+      hills to be conquered, and San Francisco&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mark my words, San Francisco will arise from these ashes a greater and
+      more beautiful city than ever. I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      D. Ogden Mills, of New York, who owned enormous properties in the stricken
+      city, was equally confident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will go ahead,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One prominent Eastern capitalist expressed the general conviction in the
+      following words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s province could be undertaken at once and without an excessive
+      burden of interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Earthquake Wave Felt Round the Earth.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WIDESPREAD EARTH TREMORS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;Formosa, Southern Italy, Caucasia, and the Canary Islands&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      RECORDS OF FOREIGN OBSERVATIONS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;fault&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The instruments invented for the recording of the motions of the earth&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Vesuvius Devastates the Region of Naples.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s rim, and
+      meeting the other streams that came streaming down the volcano&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE RIVERS OF LAVA.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, who was present at this scene, thus
+      describes the flight of the terrified people:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly after three o&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE CRISIS OF THE ERUPTION.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A REIGN OF TERROR.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DISASTERS AT SAN GIUSEPPE AND NAPLES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;Your Excellency, she is all I have. I am a widow. May God reward
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE ERUPTION RESUMED.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SCENES OF HORROR.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One soldier rode his horse through the ashes reaching up to its flanks,
+      calling out, &ldquo;Who wants help?&rdquo; He was rewarded by hearing a woman&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robert Underwood Johnson, one of the editors of the &ldquo;Century Magazine&rdquo;,
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AN AMERICAN OBSERVER.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s underworld.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s railways. A better idea of the surroundings
+      was obtained at dawn from the railway. We saw north what was left of Bosco
+      Trecase&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In many places temporary shelters had been built by the roadside, like
+      children&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE KING AT THE FRONT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you escape?&rdquo; he asked a priest whom he met in his journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I put myself in safety,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; asked the King.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Realizing the danger, I left Nola.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; cried the King, with a flush of anger. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send me my son, who is serving as a soldier,&rdquo; said the maimed peasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The King, visibly affected, clasped the old man&rsquo;s hand and exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE CANOPY OF DUST.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Sunday, the 15th, the searchers at Ottejano were surprised at finding
+      two aged women still alive, after six days&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE HEROES OF THE OBSERVATORY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Great Lisbon and Calabrian Earthquakes.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE GREAT LISBON EARTHQUAKE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; Day&mdash;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&mdash;the worshipped and the
+      worshippers alike&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;fortunately tenantless&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WATER ADDS TO THE DESTRUCTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WIDE-SPREAD DESTRUCTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LISBON EARTHQUAKE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most distinguishing peculiarities of this earthquake were the
+      swallowing up of the mole, and the vast extent of the earth&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The portion of the earth&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EARTHQUAKES IN CALABRIA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOST CALAMITOUS OF THE LANDSLIPS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IMMENSE DESTRUCTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Charleston and Other Earthquakes of the United States.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are by no means so free from the earthquake. Slight movements of the
+      earth&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The surface of the valley of the Mississippi was a good deal altered by
+      these convulsions&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s &ldquo;Principles of Geology.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As the hour of 9.50 was reached,&rdquo; we are told, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;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.&rdquo; In some
+      places the railway track was curiously distorted. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ground was fissured at some places in the city to a depth of many
+      feet, and numerous &ldquo;craterlets&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s crust to its gradually sinking nucleus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Volcano and the Earthquake, Earth&rsquo;s Demons of Destruction.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s kindly hand, and adapting its movements to our best good and
+      highest enjoyment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But has Nature,&mdash;if we are justified in personifying the laws and
+      forces of the universe,&mdash;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&rsquo;s notice change to
+      destructive ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE WIND IS A DEMON IN CHAINS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      smiling face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE SUBTERRANEAN POWERS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subterranean powers here spoken of, those we had denominated earth&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      boasted fanes and palaces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one who has ever seen a volcano or &ldquo;burning mountain&rdquo; 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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s crust.
+      The Titans themselves were dwarfs beside these mighty agents of
+      destruction whose domain extends for thousands of miles beneath the
+      earth&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ANCIENT AWE OF VOLCANOES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      RARITY OF ANCIENT ACCOUNTS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is to the burning heat of the earth&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF ERUPTIONS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GREAT OUTFLOWS OF LAVA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      surface, throwing up material in sufficient quantity to form new islands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      OFTEN REST FOR LONG TERMS OF YEARS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Theories of Volcanic and Earthquake Action.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ENORMOUS FORCE DISPLAYED
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VOLCANIC CONES HAVE SIMILAR CURVATURES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 (&ldquo;puys&rdquo;) of Auvergne, or more usually by
+      bursting through the sides of the cone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LAVA VARIES VERY MUCH IN LIQUIDITY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s interior that any views
+      concerning the forces at work there must necessarily be largely
+      conjectural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Robert S. Ball says, in this connection: &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE VOLCANO A SAFETY VALVE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever be the state of affairs in the depths of the earth&rsquo;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&rsquo;s unquiet face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Professor J. C. Russell, of Michigan University, presents the following
+      views concerning the status and action of volcanoes:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When reduced to its simplest terms, a volcano may be defined as a tube,
+      or conduit, in the earth&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      ERUPTIONS OF QUIET TYPE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;During eruptions of the quiet type, the lava comes to the surface in a
+      highly liquid condition&mdash;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 &lsquo;lava cones,&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When steam escapes from the summit of a volcanic conduit&mdash;which, in
+      plain terms, is a tall vessel filled with intensely hot and more or less
+      viscous liquid&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      MOUNTAINS BLOW THEIR HEADS OFF
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s surface before they succeed in opening a channel of escape through
+      the mountain&rsquo;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 &ldquo;The Earth&rsquo;s
+      Beginning&rdquo; of Sir Robert S. Ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CAUSE OF EARTHQUAKES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It follows from these considerations that the rocks which form the
+      earth&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE RADIUS OF DISTURBANCE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, suppose an earthquake takes place in Japan, it originates a series
+      of vibrations through our globe. We must here distinguish between the
+      rocks&mdash;I might almost say the comparatively pliant rocks&mdash;which
+      form the earth&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      TRANSMISSIONS OF VIBRATIONS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is to these materials that the name of &ldquo;lavas&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FLOATING PUMICE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;scoria&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;pumice.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;a darkness that might be
+      felt.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      &lsquo;Pele&rsquo;s Hair&rsquo;&mdash;Pele being the name of the goddess of the mountain.
+      Birds&rsquo; nests are sometimes found composed of this beautiful material. In
+      recent years an artificial substance similar to this Pele&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Active Volcanoes of the Earth.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      NUMBER OF ACTIVE VOLCANOES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;such as steam-jets, geysers,
+      thermal and mineral waters, spouting saline and muddy springs, and mud
+      volcanoes&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      crust may be almost equal to that which results from the occasional
+      outbursts at the great habitual volcanic vents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, on the whole of the continent of Europe, there is but one habitual
+      volcanic vent&mdash;that of Vesuvius&mdash;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&rsquo;s Isle, a submarine volcano, off the
+      Sicilian coast; and Santorin and Nisyros, in the Aegean Sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The African continent is at present known to contain about ten active
+      volcanoes&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ASIATIC INLAND VOLCANOES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A third series of volcanoes starts from the neighborhood of Behring&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THIAN SHAN AND HAWAIIAN VOLCANOES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VOLCANOES PARALLEL TO MOUNTAIN CHAINS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AREAS OF UPHEAVAL AND SUBSIDENCE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s crust have been going on through all
+      geological times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as Mr. Darwin has so well shown in his work on &ldquo;Coral Reefs,&rdquo; if we
+      trace upon a map the areas of the earth&rsquo;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&rsquo;s crust which can be proved at the present day to be undergoing
+      depression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is believed by geologists that the linear systems of volcanoes are
+      ranged along similar lines of fissure in the earth&rsquo;s crust&mdash;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Famous Vesuvius and the Destruction of Pompeii.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A city six miles off was speedily rendered uninhabitable, and was
+      destroyed by the falling stones; but two others&mdash;Herculaneum and
+      Pompeii&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BURIED CITIES EXCAVATED.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PLINY&rsquo;S CELEBRATED DESCRIPTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Historia
+      Naturalis&rdquo;. 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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your request that I should send an account of my uncle&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE VOYAGE TO STABIAE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here he stopped to consider whether he should return back again; to which
+      the pilot advised him. &lsquo;Fortune,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;favors the brave; carry me to
+      Pomponianus.&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;a resolution which, while the rest of the company were
+      hurried into it by their fears, my uncle embraced upon cool and deliberate
+      consideration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEATH OF PLINY THE ELDER
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s memory, or rather the information
+      communicated to him regarding the closing scene of Pliny&rsquo;s life, was
+      defective. Flames and sulphurous vapors could hardly be actually present
+      at Stabiae, ten miles from the centre of the eruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PLINY&rsquo;S SECOND LETTER
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Though my shocked soul recoils, my tongue shall tell.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FEAR VERSUS COMPOSURE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon this the Spanish friend whom I have mentioned, addressed himself to
+      my mother and me with great warmth and earnestness; &lsquo;If your brother and
+      your uncle,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;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?&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      DION CASSIUS ON THE ERUPTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;while all the people were sitting in the theatre.&rdquo; This
+      statement has been effectively made use of by Bulwer, in his &ldquo;Last Days of
+      Pompeii.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LAKE AVERNUS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      &ldquo;birdless,&rdquo; indicating that its ascending vapors were fatal to all birds
+      that attempted to fly above its surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HOW POMPEII IMPRESSES ITS VISITORS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+      &lsquo;Welcome&rsquo; is offered us at one silent, broken doorway; at another we are
+      warned to &lsquo;Beware of the dog!&rsquo; The painted figures,&mdash;some of them so
+      artistic and rich in colors that pictures of them are disbelieved,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      STREETS AND HOUSES OF POMPEII
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;so called from the
+      fact that &lsquo;Pansam Aed.&rsquo; is inscribed in red characters by the doorway&mdash;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&rsquo;s hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      VALUE OF THE DISCOVERY OF POMPEII
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Eruptions of Vesuvius, Etna and Stromboli.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Mount Vesuvius is of especial interest as being the only active volcano on
+      the continent of Europe&mdash;all others of that region being on the
+      islands of the Mediterranean&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE BIRTH OF MONTE NUOVO
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;smoke, fire, stones and mud
+      composed of ashes, making at the time of its opening a noise like the
+      loudest thunder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LAVA FROM VESUVIUS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GREAT ERUPTION OF 1767
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s account is
+      too lively and instructive for his own words to be omitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PADRE TORRE&rsquo;S NARRATIVE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BREISLAK ON THE ERUPTION OF 1794
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Breislak remarked certain changes in the character of the earth&rsquo;s motions
+      during this six hours&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      STRANGE EFFECTS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a very
+      instructive phenomenon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HARDIHOOD OF THE PEOPLE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOUNT ETNA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;more
+      especially during the intervals when Vesuvius was inactive&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIMILARITY IN ETNA&rsquo;S ERUPTIONS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Smyth says: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE ERUPTION OF 1669
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VILLAGES AND CITIES BURIED
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE STONES EJECTED
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ETNA IN 1819
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EFFECT OF THE ERUPTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE LIPARI VOLCANOES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been observed that the violence of its eruptive force has a certain
+      dependence on the weather&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HOFFMAN AT STROMBOLI
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Skaptar Jokull and Hecla, the Great Icelandic Volcanoes.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Iceland&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VOLCANOES IN ICELAND
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DREADFUL FLOODS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;either drying up
+      its waters, or chasing them before it into the lower part of the river&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A TORRENT OF LAVA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ENORMOUS QUANTITY OF LAVA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ERUPTION OF MOUNT HECLA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a circumstance that has rendered it
+      the best known of the volcanoes of this region.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LATER OUTBREAKS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ELECTRIC PHENOMENA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Cosmos&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Volcanoes of the Philippines and Other Pacific Islands.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ERUPTION OF GALUNG GUNG
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;crowded
+      with dead buffaloes, deer, apes, tigers, and crocodiles&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE LUZON VOLCANOES.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;Taal, Bulusan and Mayon
+      or Albay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BULUSAN AND TAAL
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VOLCANOES IN THE SOUTHERN ISLANDS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE GREAT ERUPTION OF TOMBORO
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of the East Indian Islands Sumbawa, lying east of Java, contains the
+      most formidable volcano&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;ir, who was an eye-witness of the
+      eruption, thus described it to Sir Stamford:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ir&mdash;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&rsquo;ir&mdash;carrying the roofs and light
+      parts away with it. In the port of Sang&rsquo;ir, adjoining Tomboro, its effects
+      were much more violent&mdash;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&rsquo;ir&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE VOLCANOES OF JAPAN
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;monarch of mountains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HOT SPRINGS NEAR HAKONE LAKE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BANDAISAN&rsquo;S WORK OF TERROR
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The original cone of the mountain,&rdquo; he continues, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MR. NORMAN&rsquo;S NARRATIVE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At a few minutes past 8 o&rsquo;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.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;millions of tons of boiling mud
+      were hurled over the country at the rate of two miles a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE NEW ZEALAND VOLCANOES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE PINK AND WHITE TERRACES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were no more beautiful products of nature upon the earth than those
+      &ldquo;pink and white terraces,&rdquo; 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&rsquo;s
+      surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TARAWERA IN ERUPTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE ANTARCTIC VOLCANOES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Wonderful Hawaiian Craters and Kilauea&rsquo;s Lake of Fire.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE ISLAND OF HAWAII
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A VOLCANIC ISLAND GROUP
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CRATER OF HALEAKALA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MISS BIRD IN THE CRATER OF KILAUEA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We cannot offer a better description of the aspect of this lava abyss than
+      to give Miss Bird&rsquo;s eloquent description of her adventurous descent into
+      it:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;which
+      not long ago fell about three hundred feet, just as the ice on a pond
+      falls when the water below is withdrawn&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This lake&mdash;the Hale-mau-mau, or &lsquo;House of everlasting Fire&rsquo;, of the
+      Hawaiian mythology, the abode of the dreaded goddess Pele&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had followed the lava-flow for thirty miles up to the crater&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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 &lsquo;bottomless pit&rsquo;, &lsquo;the
+      fire which is not quenched&rsquo;, &lsquo;the place of Hell&rsquo;, &lsquo;the lake which burneth
+      with fire and brimstone&rsquo;, &lsquo;the everlasting burnings&rsquo;, &lsquo;the fiery sea whose
+      waves are never weary&rsquo;. 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,
+      &lsquo;eye hath not seen&rsquo; it! Molten metal hath not that crimson gleam, nor
+      blood that living light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s abyss of fire. He says, after describing his difficult descent
+      and progress over the lava-strewn pit:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MR. ELLIS VISITS THE LAKE OF LAVA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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 &lsquo;fiery
+      surges&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      MAUNA LOA IN ERUPTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s eruptive energy. The lava
+      from this crater does not alone flow over the crater&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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, &lsquo;Stand off! Scan me
+      not! I am God&rsquo;s messenger. A work to do. Away!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Later he wrote again:&mdash;&ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE ERUPTIONS OF 1859 AND 1865
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE LAVA FLOW OF 1880
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;We
+      stood,&rdquo; writes he, &ldquo;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&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KILAUEA IN 1840
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE SINKING OF KILAUEA&rsquo;S FIRE-LAKE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;The Suspended Activity of Kilauea,&rdquo; says of it:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE GODDESS PELE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s Hair, being the
+      glass-like product of volcanic fires. It resembles Prince Rupert&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This fabled being, according to Emerson, in a paper on &ldquo;The Lesser
+      Hawaiian Gods,&rdquo; &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Kamapauaa was a gigantic
+      hog, who &ldquo;could appear as a handsome young man, a hog, a fish or a tree.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;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 paralyzed 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s power
+      was widely shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Popocatapetl and Other Volcanoes of Mexico and Central America.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SULPHUR FROM THE CRATER
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flame was issuing from the hideous abysses, and the stoutest man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE VOLCANO JORULLO
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EFFECT ON THE RIVERS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ERUPTIONS IN NICARAGUA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The Terrible Eruption of Krakatoa.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;booming sounds like the firing of
+      artillery.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AWFUL PREMONITIONS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;far the most violent and productive of the most widespread
+      results.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FAR-REACHING DESTRUCTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;clock it had ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE ERUPTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s &ldquo;Our Earth and its Story&rdquo; a description of these closely-related
+      events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;clock on Monday morning&mdash;we are drawing on the account of
+      an eye-witness&mdash;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 &lsquo;tidal wave.&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DETONATIONS HEARD FOR MANY MILES AWAY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of the 3,500 Europeans and Americans in Batavia&mdash;which for several
+      hours was in darkness, owing to the fall of ashes&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SERIES OF ATMOSPHERIC WAVES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;that recorded from Rodriguez&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition to the account given of this extraordinary volcanic event, it
+      seems desirable to give Sir Robert S. Ball&rsquo;s description of it in his
+      recent work, &ldquo;The Earth&rsquo;s Beginnings.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR ROBERT S. BALL&rsquo;S DESCRIPTION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AN EXTRAORDINARY NOISE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A CONSTANT WIND
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A VAST CLOUD Of DUST
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXTRAORDINARY RED SUNSETS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;green sun.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE RED SUNSETS DESCRIBED
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One writer describes the appearance of these sunsets in the following
+      terms: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; This description, although
+      exaggerated, represents the general conditions of the phenomenon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On October 20th, 1884, the author observed the sunset effect as follows:
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s doings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Mount Pelee and its Harvest of Death.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A PEACEFUL SCENE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+      &ldquo;Old Father Pelee is our protector&mdash;not our destroyer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION BY A SUFFERER.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE FATEFUL EIGHTH OF MAY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s
+      deck, where the passengers and others were gazing at the town, some being
+      engaged in photographing the scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A TALE OF SUDDEN RUIN
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HEAT CAUSED EXPLOSIONS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The French cruiser Suchet came in and took us off at 2 P. M. She remained
+      nearby, helping all she could, until 5 o&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      C. C. Evans, of Montreal, and John G. Morris, of New York, who were among
+      those rescued, say the vessel arrived at 6 o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can never forget the horrid, fiery, choking whirlwind which enveloped
+      me,&rdquo; said Mr. Evans. &ldquo;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&rsquo;clock, when
+      the Suchet came to our rescue. We were then building a raft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ben&rdquo; Benson, the carpenter of the Roraima, said: &ldquo;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 &lsquo;duds.&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE COOPER&rsquo;S STORY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      James Taylor, a cooper employed on the Roraima, gives the following
+      account of his experience of the disaster:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CONSUL AYME&rsquo;S STATEMENT
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s ship, was seen
+      opposite the Usine Guerin, and disappeared as if blown up by a submarine
+      explosion. The captain&rsquo;s body was subsequently found by a boat from the
+      Suchet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A WOMAN&rsquo;S EXPERIENCE ON THE &ldquo;RORAIMA&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She says she was in her stateroom, when the steward of the Roraima called
+      out to her:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at Mont Pelee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;It is
+      coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While this was being done Margaret&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CAPTAIN FREEMAN&rsquo;S THRILLING ACCOUNT
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;St. Lucia, British West Indies, May 11.&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AWFUL RESULTS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;clock in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;FREEMAN,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Master British Steamship Roddam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE &ldquo;ETONA&rdquo; PASSES ST. PIERRE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s story:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s people
+      had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Do you see that over there?&rsquo; I asked, pointing to the eruption, for it
+      was the second eruption of Mont Pelee. He saw it all right. Captain
+      Freeman&rsquo;s story was fresh in my mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Well, Farrish, rush your engines as they have never been rushed before,&rsquo; 
+      I said to him. He went below, and soon we began to burn coal and pile up
+      the feathers in our forefoot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The air smelled like phosphorus. No one dared to look up to try to locate
+      the sun, because one&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After a little more than an hour&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      CHIEF ENGINEER FARRISH&rsquo;S STORY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Etona&rsquo;s run from Montevideo was a fast one&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About 3 o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Do you see that, Farrish?&rsquo; he asked, pointing at the land. An outburst
+      of smoke seemed to be sweeping down upon us. It made me think of the
+      Roddam&rsquo;s experience. Smoke and dust closed in about us, shutting out the
+      sunlight, and precipitating a fall of lava on our decks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Go below and drive her,&rsquo; said the captain, and I didn&rsquo;t lose any time, I
+      can tell you. We burned coal as though it didn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      CAPTAIN CANTELL VISITS THE &ldquo;RODDAM&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Cantell went on board the Roddam, whose frightful condition he
+      thus describes:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s injured eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think the performance of the Roddam&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE VIVID ACCOUNT OF M. ALBERT
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      WHAT HAPPENED ON THE &ldquo;HORACE&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s story:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;cas&rsquo;le indications, a
+      dead calm was in sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GREAT FLASHES OF LIGHT
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;cas&rsquo;le prophets
+      were unable to offer explanations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About nine o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I attributed it to some rather bad coal which we had shipped aboard, and,
+      turning to Chief Engineer Evans, I remarked that &lsquo;that coal was mighty
+      dirty,&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ASHES RAINED ON THE SHIP
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t have much time to
+      speculate on it, for we had to get our ship in shape to withstand we
+      hardly knew what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At first we thought that the sand must have been blown from shore. Then
+      we decided that if the Captain&rsquo;s figures were right we wouldn&rsquo;t be near
+      enough to shore to have sand blow on us, and as we had just cleared
+      Barbados, we knew that the Captain&rsquo;s figures had to be right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;clock in the morning
+      until after two in the afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE ENGINE BECAME CHOKED
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there was another anxious moment shortly after nine o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Toward three o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon of Friday we were practically clear
+      of the sand, but at eleven o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MATE SCOTT&rsquo;S GRAPHIC STORY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We got to St. Pierre in the Roraima,&rdquo; began Mr. Scott, &ldquo;at 6.30 o&rsquo;clock
+      on Thursday morning. That&rsquo;s the morning the mountain and the town and the
+      ships were all sent to hell in a minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All hands had had breakfast. I was standing on the fo&rsquo;c&rsquo;s&rsquo;l head trying
+      to make out the marks on the pipes of a ship &lsquo;way out and heading for St.
+      Lucia. I wasn&rsquo;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, &lsquo;Heave up, Mr. Scott; heave up.&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you ever see the tide come into the Bay of Fundy. It doesn&rsquo;t sneak in
+      a little at a time as it does &lsquo;round here. It rolls in in waves. That&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw the captain, I say, at the same instant I saw that ruin coming down
+      on us. I don&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t make a
+      sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had saved myself from fire by jamming a metal ventilator cover over my
+      head and jumping from the fo&rsquo;c&rsquo;s&rsquo;l head. Two St. Kitts negroes saved me
+      from the water by grabbing me by the legs and pulling me down into the
+      fo&rsquo;c&rsquo;s&rsquo;l after them. Before I could get up three men tumbled in on top of
+      me. Two of them were dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Muggah went overboard, still clinging to the fragments of his
+      wrecked bridge. Daniel Taylor, the ship&rsquo;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&rsquo;t
+      sure he was alive. The last we saw of him or his dead body it was drifting
+      shoreward on that hatch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, after staying in the fo&rsquo;c&rsquo;s&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&mdash;a hand, or an arm or a leg.
+      Below decks there were some twenty alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;c&rsquo;s&rsquo;l. All of them were burned and most of them were half
+      strangled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;s bunk. A few minutes later we looked
+      at him and he was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My own son&rsquo;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&rsquo;t. Nobody could tell me where he was. I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;d make me mate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After getting all hands that had any life left in them below and &lsquo;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&rsquo;t much left to burn, so
+      we got the fire down so&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PREPARED TO TRUST TO LUCK
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo; 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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF THE &ldquo;NORDBY&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On May 5th,&rdquo; the captain said, &ldquo;we touched at St. Michael&rsquo;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&rsquo;s on the same day. Nothing worth
+      while talking about occurred until two days afterward&mdash;Wednesday, May
+      7th.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t know what to make of it. Along about 2 o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, as quick as you could toss a biscuit over its rail, the Nordby
+      dropped&mdash;regularly dropped&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      strangest storm you ever heard tell of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t see half a ship&rsquo;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&rsquo;t come. There was no sound except
+      the big waves pounding against our sides. There wasn&rsquo;t a breath of wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir, at that minute there began the most exciting time I&rsquo;ve ever
+      been through, and I&rsquo;ve been on every sea on the map for twenty-five years.
+      Every second there&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;I guess the first time they ever did in their lives.
+      Some Frenchmen aboard kept running around and yelling, &lsquo;Cest le dernier
+      jour!&rsquo; (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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;t know whether we were one mile or a
+      thousand miles from shore. At 2 o&rsquo;clock in the morning all the queer
+      goings on stopped just the way they began&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; you couldn&rsquo;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&rsquo;d sooner stay ashore than see waves without wind and lightning
+      without thunder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      FIERY STREAM CONTAINED POISONOUS GASES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      St. Vincent Island and Mont Soufriere in 1812.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s bed.
+      From north to south volcanic hills traverse its length, their ridges
+      intersected by fertile and beautiful valleys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind the general group of the houses of the town loom the Governor&rsquo;s
+      residence and the buildings of the botanical gardens which overlook the
+      town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DESCENDANTS OF ORIGINAL INDIAN POPULATION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be said that all the volcanic mountains in this part of the West
+      Indies have what the people call a &ldquo;soufriere&rdquo;&mdash;a &ldquo;sulphur pit,&rdquo; or
+      &ldquo;sulphur crater&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE APPEARANCE OF THE SOUFRIERE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;hence
+      called, or supposed to be, &ldquo;invisible,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE ERUPTION OF 1812
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE TERRIBLE EARTHQUAKE AT CARACAS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE MOUNTAIN STONES A HERD-BOY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s rim and rushed downward, reaching the sea in
+      four hours, and the great eruption was at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the same day, says Humboldt, at a distance of more than 200 leagues,
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s surface larger than half Europe, were stilled by the
+      eruption of St. Vincent&rsquo;s volcanic peak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BARBADOS COVERED WITH ASHES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The movement of the ashes to windward, as just stated, was viewed as a
+      remarkable phenomenon, and is cited by Elise Reclus, in &ldquo;The Ocean,&rdquo; to
+      show the force of different aerial currents; &ldquo;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.&rdquo; For
+      this it must have been hurled miles high into the air, till caught by the
+      current of the anti-trade winds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      KINGSLEY&rsquo;S VISIT TO SAINT VINCENT
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Charles Kingsley&rsquo;s &ldquo;At Last&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I regretted much that I could not visit it. Three points I longed to
+      ascertain carefully&mdash;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 &lsquo;Dry River,&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BLACK SUNDAY AT BARBADOS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day after the explosion, &lsquo;Black Sunday,&rsquo; 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&mdash;prayers, sobs, and cries, in Stygian darkness,
+      from trembling crowds. And still the darkness continued and the dust fell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      INCIDENTS AT BARBADOS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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. &lsquo;The volcano in St. Vincent has
+      broken out at last,&rsquo; said the wise man, &lsquo;and this is the dust of it.&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Submarine Volcanoes and their Work of Island Building.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s crust, and that they
+      are of a volcanic nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some time before the eruption in question, earthquakes shook the
+      surrounding islands of the Navigator&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AN ERUPTION DESCRIBED
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BUILDING UP OF AN ISLAND BY SUBMARINE VOLCANOES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s flag. Names in abundance were given it by successive observers,&mdash;Nerita,
+      Sciacca, Fernandina, Julia, Hotham, Corrao, and Graham. The last holds
+      good in English speech, and as Graham&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HOW AN ISLAND GREW
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s time it was 60 feet high, 200 long and 90
+      wide. The people of Santorin named it &ldquo;George,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN THE ICELANDIC SEAS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;Smoky Cape, as the name
+      means&mdash;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&mdash;birds now extinct&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      OFF THE COAST OF ALASKA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;effective only by
+      their myriads&mdash;begin their labors, building fringes of coral rock
+      around the cindery heaps lifted from the ocean floor. The atolls of the
+      Pacific&mdash;circular or oval rings of coral with lagunes of sea-water
+      within&mdash;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&mdash;unless the subsidence be too rapid for
+      their powers of production&mdash;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&rsquo;s primal floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Mud Volcanoes, Geysers, and Hot Springs.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Our usual impression of a volcano is indicated in the title of &ldquo;burning
+      mountain,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE GREAT MUD VOLCANO OF SICILY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE MUD VOLCANO OF JAVA
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE GEYSER IS A WATER VOLCANO
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ERUPTION CAN BE INDUCED BY ARTIFICIAL MEANS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The same author thus describes an eruption of the Great Geyser, which
+      occurred about two o&rsquo;clock in the morning: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GEYSERS OF THE UNITED STATES
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE YELLOWSTONE GEYSERS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 preemption. 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&mdash;which
+      is about 54 miles by 62 miles, and includes 3,312 square miles&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      &ldquo;steamboat vent,&rdquo; as it was called, was of recent formation. In 1875 it
+      had no existence, but in 1879 the spouting spring&mdash;which first
+      opened, it is believed, on the 11th of August in the preceding year&mdash;had
+      &ldquo;settled down to business as a very powerful flowing geyser,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;in
+      the Upper Geyser Basin of Fire Hole River&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 progress. 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Tinselled o&rsquo;er in robes of varying hues,&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A DESCRIPTION OF THE GEYSER AT WORK
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Grand is one of the most important in the Upper Geyser basin. Yet,
+      unlike the Grotto, the Giant, or the Old Faithful,&mdash;so called from
+      its frequent and regular eruptions&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Boiling River,&rdquo; which
+      empties into the Gardiner River.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These springs are marvels of beauty. Their terraced bowls, adorned with
+      delicate fret-work, are among the finest specimens of Nature&rsquo;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&rsquo;s artistic handiwork.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The San Francisco Calamity, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The San Francisco Calamity
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles Morris
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2006 [EBook #1560]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+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 who is not afraid of them,
+the sensation of one of these little tremblers is rather pleasant than
+otherwise, and the inhabitants grew so accustomed to them as rarely to
+let them disturb their equanimity.
+
+After 1900 the forces beneath the earth seemed to fall asleep. As it
+proved, they were only biding their time. The era was at hand when they
+were to declare themselves in all their mighty power and fall upon the
+devoted city with ruin in their grasp. But all this lay hidden in the
+secret casket of time, and the city kept up to its record as one of the
+liveliest and in many respects the most reckless and pleasure-loving
+on the continent, its people squandering their money with thoughtless
+improvidence and enjoying to the full all the good that life held out to
+them.
+
+On the 17th of April, 1906, the city was, as usual, gay, careless, busy,
+its people attending to business or pleasure with their ordinary vim as
+inclination led them, and not a soul dreaming of the horrors that lay in
+wait. They were as heedless of coming peril and death as the inhabitants
+of Sodom and Gomorrah before the rain of fire from heaven descended upon
+their devoted heads. This is not to say that they were doomed by God to
+destruction like these "cities of the plains." We should more wisely
+say that the forces of ruin within the earth take no heed of persons or
+places. They come and go as the conditions of nature demand, and if man
+has built one of his cities across their destined track, its doom comes
+from its situation, not from the moral state of its inhabitants.
+
+
+THE GREAT DISASTER OF 1906.
+
+
+That night the people went, with their wonted equanimity, to their beds,
+rich and poor, sick and well alike. Did any of them dream of disaster in
+the air? It may be so, for often, as the poet tells us, "Coming events
+cast their shadows before." But, forewarned by dreams or not, doubtless
+not a soul in the great city was prepared for the terrible event so
+near at hand, when, at thirteen minutes past five o'clock on the dread
+morning of the 18th, they felt their beds lifted beneath them as if by
+a Titan hand, heard the crash of falling walls and ceilings, and saw
+everything in their rooms tossed madly about, while through their
+windows came the roar of an awful disaster from the city without.
+
+It was a matter not of minutes, but of seconds, yet on all that coast,
+long the prey of the earthquake, no shock like it had ever been felt,
+no such sudden terror awakened, no such terrible loss occasioned as in
+those few fearful seconds. Again and again the trembling of the earth
+passed by, three quickly repeated shocks, and the work of the demon of
+ruin was done. People woke with a start to find themselves flung from
+their beds to the floor, many of them covered with the fragments of
+broken ceilings, many lost among the ruins of falling floors and walls,
+many pinned in agonizing suffering under the ruins of their houses,
+which had been utterly wrecked in those fatal seconds. Many there were,
+indeed, who had been flung to quick if not to instant death under their
+ruined homes.
+
+Those seconds of the reign of the elemental forces had turned the
+gayest, most careless city on the continent into a wreck which no words
+can fitly describe. Those able to move stumbled in wild panic across the
+floors of their heaving houses, regardless of clothing, of treasures, of
+everything but the mad instinct for safety, and rushed headlong into the
+streets, to find that the earth itself had yielded to the energy of its
+frightful interior forces and had in places been torn and rent like the
+houses themselves. New terrors assailed the fugitives as fresh tremors
+shook the solid ground, some of them strong enough to bring down
+shattered walls and chimneys, and bring back much of the mad terror of
+the first fearful quake. The heaviest of these came at eight o'clock.
+While less forcible than that which had caused the work of destruction,
+it added immensely to the panic and dread of the people and put many of
+the wanderers to flight, some toward the ferry, the great mass in the
+direction of the sand dunes and Golden Gate Park.
+
+The spectacle of the entire population of a great city thus roused
+suddenly from slumber by a fierce earthquake shock and sent flying into
+the streets in utter panic, where not buried under falling walls or
+tumbling debris, is one that can scarcely be pictured in words, and can
+be given in any approach to exact realization only in the narratives of
+those who passed through its horrors and experienced the sensations to
+which it gave rise. Some of the more vivid of these personal accounts
+will be presented later, but at present we must confine ourselves to a
+general statement of the succession of events.
+
+The earthquake proved but the beginning and much the least destructive
+part of the disaster. In many of the buildings there were fires, banked
+for the night, but ready to kindle the inflammable material hurled down
+upon them by the shock. In others were live electric wires which the
+shock brought in contact with woodwork. The terror-stricken fugitives
+saw, here and there, in all directions around them, the alarming vision
+of red flames curling upward and outward, in gleaming contrast to the
+white light of dawn just showing in the eastern sky. Those lurid gleams
+climbed upward in devouring haste, and before the sun had fairly risen
+a dozen or more conflagrations were visible in all sections of the
+business part of the city, and in places great buildings broke with
+startling suddenness into flame, which shot hotly high into the air.
+
+While the mass of the people were stunned by the awful suddenness of the
+disaster and stood rooted to the ground or wandered helplessly about in
+blank dismay, there were many alert and self-possessed among them who
+roused themselves quickly from their dismay and put their energies
+to useful work. Some of these gave themselves to the work of rescue,
+seeking to save the injured from their perilous situation and draw
+the bodies of the dead from the ruins under which they lay. Those base
+wretches to whom plunder is always the first thought were as quickly
+engaged in seeking for spoil in edifices laid open to their plundering
+hands by the shock. Meanwhile the glare of the flames brought the
+fire-fighters out in hot haste with their engines, and up from the
+military station at the Presidio, on the Golden Gate side of the city,
+came at double quick a force of soldiers, under the efficient command of
+General Funston, of Cuban and Philippine fame. These trained troops were
+at once put on guard over the city, with directions to keep the best
+order possible, and with strict command to shoot all looters at sight.
+Funston recognized at the start the necessity of keeping the lawless
+element under control in such an exigency as that which he had to face.
+Later in the day the First Regiment of California National Guards was
+called out and put on duty, with similar orders.
+
+
+RESCUERS AND FIRE-FIGHTERS.
+
+
+The work of fighting the fire was the first and greatest duty to be
+performed, but from the start it proved a very difficult, almost a
+hopeless, task. With fierce fires burning at once in a dozen or more
+separate places, the fire department of the city would have been
+inadequate to cope with the demon of flame even under the best of
+circumstances. As it was, they found themselves handicapped at the start
+by a nearly total lack of water. The earthquake had disarranged and
+broken the water mains and there was scarcely a drop of water to be had,
+so that the engines proved next to useless. Water might be drawn from
+the bay, but the centre of the conflagration was a mile or more away,
+and this great body of water was rendered useless in the stringent
+exigency.
+
+The only hope that remained to the authorities was to endeavor to check
+the progress of the flames by the use of dynamite, blowing up buildings
+in the line of progress of the conflagration. This was put in practice
+without loss of time, and soon the thunder-like roar of the explosions
+began, blasts being heard every few minutes, each signifying that some
+building had been blown to atoms. But over the gaps thus made the flames
+leaped, and though the brave fellows worked with a desperation and
+energy of the most heroic type, it seemed as if all their labors were
+to be without avail, the terrible fire marching on as steadily as if a
+colony of ants had sought to stay its devastating progress.
+
+
+THE HORROR OF THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+It was with grief and horror that the mass of the people gazed on this
+steady march of the army of ruin. They were seemingly half dazed by the
+magnitude of the disaster, strangely passive in the face of the ruin
+that surrounded them, as if stunned by despair and not yet awakened to
+a realization of the horrors of the situation. Among these was the
+possibility of famine. No city at any time carries more than a few days'
+supply of provisions, and with the wholesale districts and warehouse
+regions invaded by the flames the shortage of food made itself apparent
+from the start. Water was even more difficult to obtain, the supply
+being nearly all cut off. Those who possessed supplies of food and
+liquids of any kind in many cases took advantage of the opportunity to
+advance their prices. Thus an Associated Press man was obliged to pay
+twenty-five cents for a small glass of mineral water, the only kind of
+drink that at first was to be had, while food went up at the same rate,
+bakers frequently charging as much as a dollar for a loaf. As for the
+expressmen and cabmen, their charges were often practically prohibitory,
+as much as fifty dollars being asked for the conveyance of a passenger
+to the ferry. Policemen were early stationed at some of the retail
+shops, regulating the sale and the price of food, and permitting only
+a small portion to be sold to each purchaser, so as to prevent a few
+persons from exhausting the supply.
+
+The fire, the swaying and tottering walls, the frequent dynamite
+explosions, each followed by a crashing shower of stones and bricks,
+rendered the streets very unsafe for pedestrians, and all day long
+the flight of residents from the city went on, growing quickly to the
+dimensions of a panic. The ferryboats were crowded with those who wished
+to leave the city, and a constant stream of the homeless, carrying such
+articles as they had rescued from their homes, was kept up all day
+long, seeking the sand dunes, the parks and every place uninvaded by
+the flames. Before night Golden Gate Park and the unbuilt districts
+adjoining on the ocean side presented the appearance of a tented city,
+shelter of many kinds being improvised from bedding and blankets, and
+the people settling into such sparse comfort as these inadequate means
+provided.
+
+A strange feature of the disaster was a rush to the banks by people who
+wished to get their money and flee from the seemingly doomed city. The
+fire front was yet distant from these institutions, which were destined
+to fall a prey to the flames, and all that morning lines of dishevelled
+and half-frantic men stood before the banks on Montgomery and Sansome
+Streets, braving in their thirst for money the smoke and falling embers
+and beating in wild anxiety upon the doors. Their effort was vain; the
+doors remained closed; finally the police drove these people away, and
+the banks went on with the work of saving their valuables. As for the
+people who wildly fled toward the ferries, in spite of the fact that
+ten blocks of fire, as the day went on, stopped all egress in that
+direction, it became necessary for them to be driven back by the police
+and the troops, and they were finally forced to seek safety in the
+sands. And thus, with incident manifold, went on that fatal Wednesday,
+the first day of the dread disaster.
+
+
+OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
+
+
+It is important here to give the official record of the earthquake
+shocks, as given by the scientists. Professor George Davidson, of the
+University of California, says of them:
+
+"The earthquake came from north to south, and the only description I am
+able to give of its effect is that it seemed like a terrier shaking a
+rat. I was in bed, but was awakened by the first shock. I began to count
+the seconds as I went towards the table where my watch was, being able
+through much practice closely to approximate the time in that manner.
+The shock came at 5.12 o'clock. The first sixty seconds were the most
+severe. From that time on it decreased gradually for about thirty
+seconds. There was then the slightest perceptible lull. Then the shock
+continued for sixty seconds longer, being slighter in degree in this
+minute than in any part of the preceding minute and a half. There were
+two slight shocks afterwards which I did not time. At 8.14 o'clock
+I recorded a shock of five seconds' duration, and one at 4.15 of two
+seconds. There were slight shocks which I did not record at 5.17 and at
+5.27. At 6.50 P. M. there was a sharp shock of several seconds."
+
+Professor A. O. Louschner, of the students' observatory of the
+University of California, thus records his observations:
+
+"The principal part of the earthquake came in two sections, the first
+series of vibrations lasting about forty seconds. The vibrations
+diminished gradually during the following ten seconds, and then occurred
+with renewed vigor for about twenty-five seconds more. But even at
+noon the disturbance had not subsided, as slight shocks are recorded
+at frequent intervals on the seismograph. The motion was from
+south-southeast to north-northwest.
+
+"The remarkable feature of this earthquake, aside from its intensity,
+was its rotary motion. As seen from the print, the sum total of all
+displacements represents a very regular ellipse, and some of the
+lines representing the earth's motion can be traced along the whole
+circumference. The result of observation indicates that our heaviest
+shocks are in the direction south-southeast to north-northwest. In that
+respect the records of the three heaviest earthquakes agree entirely.
+But they have several other features in common. One of these is
+that while the displacements are very large the vibration period is
+comparatively slow, amounting to about one second in the last two big
+earthquakes."
+
+If we seek to discover the actual damage done by the earthquake, the
+fact stands out that the fire followed so close upon it that the traces
+of its ravages were in many cases obliterated. So many buildings in the
+territory of the severest shock fell a prey to the flames or to dynamite
+that the actual work of the earth forces was made difficult and in
+many places impossible to discover. This fact is likely to lead to
+considerable dispute and delay when the question of insurance adjustment
+comes up, many of the insurance companies confining their risk to fire
+damage and claiming exemption from liability in the case of damage due
+to earthquake.
+
+Among the chief victims of the earth-shake was the costly and showy City
+Hall, with its picturesque dome standing loftily above the structure.
+This dome was left still erect, but only as a skeleton might stand, with
+its flesh gone and its bare ribs exposed to the searching air. Its roof,
+its smaller towers came tumbling down in frightful disarray, and the
+once proud edifice is 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
+Committee 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, 1906.
+
+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 Franciscan 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 paralyzed 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 preemption. 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 progress. 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 EBook of The San Francisco Calamity, by Various
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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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+This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com.
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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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