T EARTHQUA 
 
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 SAN FRANCISCO CAL 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924005869809 
 
Br [Awm AUD m 
 
 AN AUTHENTIC HISTORY OF THE 
 
 SAN FR.ANCISCO CALAMITY 
 
 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 EKght of 300,000 Hewneless People and the 
 World-wide Ru»b to the Rescue, 
 
 TOLD BY EYE WITNESSES 
 
 GRAPHIC AND RELIABLE ACCOUNTS OF ALL GREAT EARTH- 
 QUAKES AND VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE WORLD'S 
 HISTORY, AND SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS 
 OF THEIR CAUSES. 
 
 Edited by 
 
 LINDLEY SMYTH 
 
 Author of "The Great Movements of History and their 
 Origins." "Child Life in all Nations," etc. 
 
 WITH NEAKLY 100 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 M.ADE Especially for This Work, Showing the Havoc Caused by Fire, 
 Earthquake and Volcanic Convulsions. 
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS 
 PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
Entered a.coordlng to aot of 
 Congress In the yeOLr I9U6 by 
 W. E. SCULL, in the office 
 of tKe Librai.ria.n of Congress 
 B.t Wa-shington, D. C 
 
 All Rights R-eserved. 
 
i^itratei 
 
 To all who suffered from fire and 
 earthquake in California, and to those who 
 nobly aided in relieving their distress. 
 
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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 pos- 
 terity. 
 
 Other frightful catastrophes the world has known. The earth- 
 quake which dropped Lisbon into the sea in 1755, and in a moment 
 
 swallowed up twenty-five thousand people, was perhaps more awful 
 
 - . -, . ix 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 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 com- 
 parable in destructive fury with that which was manifested upon the 
 Pacific coast. The only other calamity at all equalling it, or sur- 
 passing 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 
 
PREFACE xl 
 
 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 catas- 
 trophe that befell from an act of Nature apparently no more extra- 
 ordinary 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 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 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 insig- 
 nificance 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. 
 
 iThe Publishers. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 J CHAPTER I. 
 
 ^ SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 .THE DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 39 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 FIGHTING FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE 57 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION........ 66 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 rTHE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 82 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 98 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 115 
 
 xiii 
 
xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 126 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 DISASTER SPREADS OVER THE GOLDEN STATE 138 
 
 . CHAPTER X. 
 
 [all AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE 143 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 {.THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST 153 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 :LIFE in the METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC 160 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO 167 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE EARTHQUAKE WAVE FELT AROUND THE WORLD.... 177 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 VESUVIUS DEVASTATES THE REGION OF NAPLES 182 
 
 ' CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES.... 201 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 THE CHARLESTON AND OTHER EARTHQUAKES OF THE 
 
 UNITED STATES 210 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 THE VOLCANO AND THE EARTHQUAKE, EARTH'S DEMONS 
 
 OF DESTRUCTION 221 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 THE THEORIES OF VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION. 231 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 THE ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH 252 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF 
 
 POMPEII 264 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 283 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 SKAPTER JOKULL AND HECLA, THE GREAT ICELANDIC 
 
 VOLCANOES 305' 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 VOLCANOES OF THE PHILIPPINES AND OTHER PACIFIC 
 
 ISLANDS 313 
 
xvi . TABLE OF CONTENTb 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 THE WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS AND KILAUEA'S 
 
 LAKE OF FIRE 33^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 POPOCATEPETL AND OTHER VOLCANOES OF MEXICO AND 
 
 CENTRAL AMERICA 349 
 
 CHAPTER XilVII. 
 THE TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 357 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH IN 1902 375 
 
 CHAPTER XXlX. 
 ST. VINCENT ISLAND AND MONT SOUERlERE IN 1812 41D 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 lS and THEIR 
 BUILDING 421 
 
 SUBMARINE VOLCANOES AND THEIR WORK OF ISLi^ND- 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 MUD VOLCANOES, GEYSERS AND HOT SPRINGS 431 
 
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 destruc- 
 tion 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. 
 
 '7 
 
1 3 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS- TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 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 con- 
 firmed 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. 
 
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 19 
 
 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 
 
20 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 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 Sdn Francisco few traces remain, the old build- 
 ings 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 incli- 
 nation 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 con- 
 siderable measure earthquake proof. 
 
 The city before the fire contained numerous handsome struc- 
 tures, 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, 
 
San FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 21 
 
 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 northern- 
 most 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 Straw- 
 berry Hill, and beyond these the Twin Peaks, which really embrace 
 three hills, the third being named Bernal Heights. Farther to the 
 
22 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 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 plank- 
 ing 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 01^ 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 
 
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 23 
 
 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 Pipe- 
 ville 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 
 
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 25 
 
 corded, while all California has been subject to them. But fre- 
 quency 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 Hfe. 
 
 There was a violent shock in 1856, when the city was only a 
 mining town of small frame buildings. Several shanties were over- 
 thrown 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 buiUings and caused a panic. 
 There was no great loss of life. In April, 1898, just before mid- 
 night, 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 
 
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SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 25 
 
 corded, while all California has been subject to them. But fre- 
 quency 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 over- 
 thrown 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 mid- 
 night, 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 
 
26 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 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, igo6, 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 situa- 
 tion, not from the moral state of its inhabitants. 
 
 THE GREAT DISASTER OF I906. 
 
 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, fore- 
 
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 27 
 
 warned 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 i8th, 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 agoniz- 
 ing 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 cloth- 
 ing, 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 hke 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 
 
28 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 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 narra- 
 tives 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 show- 
 ing 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. 
 
CONSPICUOUS FIGURES IN THE RELIEF WORK. 
 
 Claus Spreckels, the Sugar King, who suffered enormous losses and 
 yet contrbuted freely to alleviate suffering. 
 
 General Funston, who prevented a reign of terror by strict military 
 discipline. 
 
 Secretary of Commerce and Labor Metcalf, who was interested in the 
 work of relief. 
 
CELEBRATED BUILDINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO. 
 The upper picture is a photograph of the Dolores Mission. Below, 
 United States Mint, which was saved from the flames. 
 
 the 
 
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 29 
 
 While the mass of the people were stunned by the awful sud- 
 denness 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 
 disxnay 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 
 
30 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 the start by a nearly total lack of water. The earthquake had dis- 
 arranged 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 pro-visions, 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 oflF. Those who 
 
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 31 
 
 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 appear- 
 ance of a tented city, shelter of many kinds being improvised from 
 bedding and blankets, and the people settling into such sparse com- 
 fort 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 
 
32 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 lines of dishevelled and half-frantic men stood before the banks on 
 Montgomery and Sansome Strets, 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 de- 
 scription 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 Vo 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 after- 
 wards which I did not time. At 8.14 o'clock I recorded a shock of 
 
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 33 
 
 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-north- 
 west. 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 vibra- 
 tion 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 earth- 
 quake, the fact stands out that the fire followed so close upon it that 
 the traces of its ravages were in many cases obHterated. 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 
 3 
 
34 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 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 earth- 
 quake 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 M^as the extraordinary irregularity of the earth- 
 quake'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 
 
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 35 
 
 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 sky- 
 scraper 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 
 
36 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 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 re- 
 paired 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 four- 
 teen-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 resist- 
 ance 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 direc- 
 tions, 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. 
 
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 37 
 
 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 earthqttake 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 Stan- 
 ford, 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 
 
38 SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE 
 
 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 
 
 39 
 
40 DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 
 
 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 unre- 
 sisting 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 earth- 
 quake 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, bvit the flames were an enemy against which 
 
FIRE RAVAGING MARKET STREET, 
 Tlie principal street of San Francisco's business centre. It was one of the 
 quarters to be devastated by the flames. House after house succumbed, 
 but the lofty "Call" or Spreckels building remained standing. 
 
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DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 41 
 
 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, hous-ing 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 efiforts to stay 
 its devouring fury proving futile. In the business section of the 
 city everything was in ruins. Not a btisiness house was left stand- 
 ing. 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 
 
42 DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 
 
 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 Cit)'- 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, 
 
DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 43 
 
 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 atten- 
 tion 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 fore- 
 head. They had been dragged from the ruins of their house on 
 the water front. A large consignment of bodies, mostly of work- 
 ingmen, 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 dam- 
 age, 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. 
 
44 DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 
 
 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 Haves 
 
DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 45 
 
 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 tmchecked in this direction, 
 and by noon on Thursday the whole section was a raging furnace, 
 
46 DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 
 
 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 whole- 
 sale use of dynamite. At this point were located the Southern 
 Pacific Hospital, the St. Francis Hospital and the College of Physi- 
 cians 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 man- 
 sions, the Mark Hopkins residence being said to have cost $2,500,- 
 000. These men are all dead, and the last named edifice has been 
 
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48 DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 
 
 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 in- 
 satiable 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 magnifi- 
 cent 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 vv^ithin 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 
 
DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 49 
 
 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 quar- 
 ter, 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. 
 
50 DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 
 
 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 ex- 
 perience 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 de- 
 scribe 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 
 
DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 51 
 
 either completely collapsed or brick fronts had just dropped com- 
 pletely 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 Hve 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 
 rnodern palaces, blown to atoms. First they blew up one or two 
 
52 DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 
 
 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 build- 
 ing, 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 buildirigs. 
 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 
 
DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 53 
 
 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 Flouse, 
 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 Ger- 
 man-American Savings Bank and the Crocker-Woolworth Bank 
 
54 DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 
 
 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 com- 
 merce. 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 Rem- 
 brandt, 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 Jesuit- 
 ical institution in the west, which cost a couple of millions of dollars. 
 The Merchants' Exchange bttilding, 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 FIEE 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 
 
DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 55 
 
 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 build- 
 ings, 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 
 
S6 DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY 
 
 Woodward, was complded, 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. 
 

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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 resist- 
 lessly 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 helpless- 
 ness. 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 
 
 57 
 
S8 FIGHTING THE FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE 
 
 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 eflfective 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. Fre- 
 ^quently a crash of stone and brick, followed by. a cloud of dust, gave 
 warning to pedestrians that destruction was going on in the fore- 
 front 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 dis- 
 heartened fire-fighters were driven back step by step; but they 
 continued the work with little regard for their own safety and with 
 unflinching desperation. 
 
FIGHTING THE FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE 59 
 
 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 hea\'y 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 extin- 
 guished. 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 munic- 
 ipal 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 wdth their gruesome charge a building v^as 
 blown up, and the flying bricks and spHnters 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 ttpward 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. 
 
6o FIGHTING THE FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE 
 
 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 dis- 
 tricts, 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 flam.es. 
 
FIGHTING THE FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE 6i 
 
 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 com- 
 plete. The district west of Van Ness Avenue and north of Mc- 
 Allister 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 volun- 
 
62 FIGHTING THE FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE 
 
 teers 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 triq 
 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 Mac- 
 
FIGHTING THE FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE 63 
 
 Bride was in charge of the squad, Chief Gunner Adamson placed 
 the charges and the third gunner set them ofif. 
 
 Stationing themselves on Van Ness Avenue, which the con- 
 flagration 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 treas- 
 ures 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 
 Glaus Spreckels place, on the corner of California Street. 
 
64 FIGHTING THE FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE 
 
 There the flames were writhing up the walls before the dyna- 
 miters could reach the spot. Yet they made their way to the founda- 
 tions, 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 view- 
 point 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, covild 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 Mac- 
 Bride 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. 
 
FIGHTING THE FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE 
 
 65 
 
 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 mili- 
 tary 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 i^tood 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 
 
 66 
 
THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 67 
 
 morning mist. It spread its brightness on the roofs of the sky- 
 scrapers, 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 noiselesa. 
 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 tim- 
 bers, 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 
 
68 THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 
 
 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 sleep- 
 ing 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 thoreughfare ruin, only ruin, was to 
 be seen on all sides. To the south, in hundreds of blocks, hardly a 
 
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 W 
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 re 
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 5- 
 
 69 
 
70 THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 
 
 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 court- 
 yard 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 
 v;as no more. The Chinese theatres and joss-houses tumbled into 
 ruins, rookery after rookery collapsed, and hundreds of their inhabi- 
 tants were buried alive. Panic reigned supreme among the fugi- 
 tives, 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. 
 
THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 71 
 
 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 un- 
 masked, men may see where its inner secrets lay. In places one 
 can see passages a hundred feet deep. 
 
 "The fire swept this Mongohan 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, gam- 
 bling 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 
 
72 THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 
 
 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 Insti- 
 tute 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 man- 
 sions 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 REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 73 
 
 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 con- 
 taining 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 build- 
 ing 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 dis- 
 organization 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 M'orld 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. 
 
74 THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 
 
 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 ex- 
 plosions in the immediate vicinity. The men proceeded to Oakland, 
 across the bay, and took possession of the office there. That night 
 the com-pany 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 foun- 
 tains 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 
 
THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 75 
 
 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 
 afifairs 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 trem- 
 bling, 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. 
 
76 THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 
 
 "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 comfort- 
 able. 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 direc- 
 tions, 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. 
 
THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 
 
 11 
 
 "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 strug- 
 gling 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 de- 
 struction was the outbreak of lawlessness. A city as large as San 
 Francisco is sure to hold a large number of the brigands of civiliza- 
 tion, 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 
 
78 THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 
 
 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 REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 79 
 
 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 stiilfened 
 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 shoul- 
 ders 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: 
 
8o THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 
 
 "Take warning!" 
 
 Those of the ghouls who saw this were hkely 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 Avoman. '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 ofificer 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, whxch led to tbfi 
 
THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 8i 
 
 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, 
 
 6 
 
82 THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION 
 
 cut ofif the finger bearing them, and left her to the horrors of the 
 coming fire. 
 
 The cHmax 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 carry- 
 ing 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 them- 
 selves 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 
 
 83 
 
84 THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 
 
 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 famihes to watch over set 
 out for this endangered region, half dressed as they were. In the 
 early morning Hght 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. Ports- 
 mouth 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 
 
THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 85 
 
 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 ItaHans, 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 dis- 
 regarded everything but the thought of themselves and their prop- 
 erty. In every excavation and hole throughout the north beach 
 householders bviried 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 caUing for missing loved ones. Crowding the side- 
 walks were thousands of householders attempting to drag some of 
 
86 THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 
 
 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 specvilated 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 bvmdles 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 
 
THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 87 
 
 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 direc- 
 tion, 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 th'at 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 strug- 
 gled 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 
 
88 THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 
 
 among those who lay under the open sky were men and. women who 
 were deHcately reared, accustomed all their lives to luxurious sur- 
 roundings, 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 emer- 
 gencies, 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 
 
THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 89 
 
 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 con- 
 fusion. 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 ex- 
 hausted white women with babies in their arms. Bedding, house- 
 hold furniture of every description, pet animals and trinkets, lug- 
 gage and packages of every sort packed almost every foot of space 
 near the ferry building. Alen 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 
 
90 THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 
 
 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 con- 
 tinuous 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 New- 
 foundland dog and carrying a kitten in his arms. He kept talking 
 
THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOSI 91 
 
 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 rugi 
 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. 
 
92 THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 
 
 Another story of much interest in this connection is told. On 
 P'riday 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 mag- 
 nificent residence. An Irish woman who had been called in to play 
 the part of midwife at a birth elsewhere on Saturday, made a perti- 
 nent 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, hope- 
 fully. "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 PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 93 
 
 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 
 
94 THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 
 
 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 loca- 
 tion. 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 bill- 
 board, 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 print- 
 ing 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 
 
THH PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 95 
 
 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 gf 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. 
 
 kWhat became of him nobody knows. But he seems to have 
 
96 THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 
 
 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 vis at 5.13 this morning, wreck- 
 ing 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 oper- 
 ator or a calamity, when the wire woke up again. It was the super- 
 intendent 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 build- 
 ings. 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 opera- 
 tors said, and there was no hope if the fire came on. They also said 
 
THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST 97 
 
 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 h-appen. 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. 
 
 98 
 
FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 99 
 
 "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 store- 
 keeper 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 situa- 
 tion, acting on their own responsibility in clearing out the supplies 
 of the little grocery stores left standing and distributing them 
 
loo FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 
 
 among the people in need. The principal food of those who re- 
 mained 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 representa- 
 tives of bakers wJio 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 imme- 
 diate 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 
 
FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF loi 
 
 men dropped out all along the line, and were rolled out of the drive- 
 ways 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 possess- 
 ors 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 bed- 
 ding. Many others had fled in their night garbs, and comparatively 
 
102 FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 
 
 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 Thurs- 
 day to break open every store containing provisions and to distribute 
 them to the thousands under police supervision. A policeman re- 
 ported 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 
 
FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 103 
 
 attempt to charge famine prices. The committee of citizens in 
 charge of the situation in the stricken city proposed to use every 
 eflfort 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 Fran- 
 cisco 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 $r, 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. 
 
I04 FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 
 
 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 shiver- 
 ing 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, ren- 
 dering still more evident the need of haste in providing suitable 
 shelter. 
 
 All this was foreseen by those in charge, and the most strenu- 
 ous 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 Tacorha 
 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 thou- 
 sand men at work upon their shattered mains, and in a very brief 
 
EUGENE E. SCHMITZ, MAYOR OF SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 Mayor Schmitz, by his untiring efl^orts and great executive ability, brought 
 
 order out of chaos. 
 
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FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 105 
 
 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 resourceful- 
 ness 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 struc- 
 tures, 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 
 arm)^ 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 
 
io6 FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR BELIEF 
 
 the beaches from Ingleside to the sea wall at North Beach the home- 
 less 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 mani- 
 fested 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 
 
FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 107 
 
 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 dis- 
 cipline 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 hun- 
 dreds where supplies were being given out. She took some un- 
 cooked 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 corre- 
 
io8 FACING FAMINE AND FRAYING FOR RELIEF 
 
 spondent 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 efifort 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 A.in'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 
 
FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 109 
 
 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 dispen- 
 sers. 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 timor- 
 ously 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, 
 "T 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." 
 
no FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 
 
 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 resi- 
 dence. "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 them- 
 selves, and who issued a strict edict that those who went, must stay,- 
 that there could be no return until a coimter 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 
 
FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF m 
 
 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 
 Avere 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 every- 
 where, 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, fvtgitives gath- 
 ering 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 ofifer 
 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. Hun- 
 dreds 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 
 
112 FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 
 
 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 i,8oo 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 de- 
 creased. 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 prefer- 
 ence. 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 pn 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,ooe refugees sought quarters, the big gymnasium 
 of the State University being turned into a lodging house, while 
 
FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 113 
 
 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 con- 
 servatory 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 
 jquad of gesticulating Chinamen as men herd sheep. The shouting 
 died awav a^ the minister's voice rose and fell and out of the still- 
 
114 FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF 
 
 ness 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 Wed- 
 nesday morning of April i8th in San Francisco, hun- 
 dreds of the less fortunate met their death in the ruins, and horri- 
 fying 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 aiorgues, 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 t© 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." 
 
ii6 THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 
 
 These are frightful stories, exaggerated probably from the 
 nervous excitement of those terrible moments, as are also the fol- 
 lowing 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 loo 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 pave- 
 ment 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 numbeps 
 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 
 
THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 117 
 
 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 i,5CX3 and more, while the iniured 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 
 
ii8 THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 
 
 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 fight- 
 ing the flames, General F'unston 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 Thurs- 
 day 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. 
 
THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 119 
 
 My doctor's badge protected me, but the soldiers invited my com- 
 panion, 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 conscientious^ 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 'vith 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 
 
120 THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 
 
 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 clay 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, biit 
 the weight was so great that they could do nothing to liberate them- 
 selves. After three hours rescuers came, cut a hole in the roof and 
 both were released uninjured. 
 
 E>en the docks were converted into hospitals in the stringent 
 exigency of the occasion, about loo 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 stam- 
 peding 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 
 
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LOOKING UP CALIFORNIA STREET. 
 riiis stately thoroughfare was choked with debris by the earthquake shock and then 
 laid waste by fire. The magnificent $3,000,000 Fairmount Hotel at the 
 top of the hill was saved, though considerably damaged. 
 
THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 121 
 
 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 ob- 
 server 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 ex- 
 tended 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 
 
122 THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 
 
 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 shoul- 
 der. 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 bo)r 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 flarhes eat out the heart of a great city, 
 devour its vast business establishments, storehouses and ware- 
 houses, sweep through its centres of opulence, destroy its wharves 
 with their accumulation of goods, spread ruin and havoc every- 
 where, it is impossible at first to estimate the loss. Only gradually, 
 as time goes on, is the true loss discovered, and never perhaps very 
 
THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 123 
 
 accurately, since the owners and the records of riches often dis- 
 appear 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 
 
124 THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 
 
 swung upward again, and two weeks after the fire the closest esti- 
 mates 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 ex- 
 pense. 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 ofif before attempting to 
 open them. When this was at length done the results proved dis- 
 heartening. 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 fovmd 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 pos- 
 sessing large stocks of valuable goods, many of which were looted 
 
THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH 125 
 
 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. 
 
 The}^ recount the roar of falling structures and the groans and 
 pitiful cries of those pinned beneath the timbers of collapsing build- 
 ings. 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 tug- 
 ging at the shafts, hauling all that was left of their earthly belong- 
 ings, 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 descrip- 
 tion 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. 
 
 126 
 
GARDENS OF A BEAUTIFUL PLACE NEAR SANTA BARBARA. 
 TBe climate of California is world-renowned for its mildness, and thousands of villas dot 
 
 bulls near the coast 
 
 1S7 
 
128 WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 
 
 "May God be merciful to the women and children in this land of 
 desolation and despair!" she wrote on April 21st. 
 
 "Men haA^e 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. 1 went from this unharmed city of plenty, blooming with 
 abounding health, thronged with happy mothers and joyous chil- 
 dren, 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 vipon 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 Ihe 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 
 
WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPED 129 
 
 the registration lieadquarters of the mihtary authorities has secured 
 the names of all who are among the stragghng 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 v/oman 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 sympa- 
 thetic ladies hastened into the shelter. In an hour my escort re- 
 turned 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 m.embers of 
 your sex. The very thought of it is enough to make the hearts of 
 women burst with pity. 
 
I30 WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 
 
 "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 fash- 
 ionable 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 disadvan- 
 tages of making her toilet under such untoward circumstances. 
 
 " 'Ah, Julia, dear, you must stay to luncheon,' she said, ex- 
 tending 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 whis- 
 pered 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 ^he 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 sufifered,' I said, 'to cause such a mental 
 derangement. 
 
WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 131 
 
 "The girl's eyes filled with tears. She told me that her mistress 
 had seen her brother killed by falling timbers while they were hur- 
 rying 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 minis- 
 tering 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 be 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.' 
 
132 WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 
 
 "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 ofifered 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 dis- 
 appeared. 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. 
 
WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 133 
 
 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 earth- 
 quake 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. Hun- 
 dreds were rushing down the street,and every minute people were 
 felled by falling debris. 
 
 "At places the streets had cracked and opened. Chasms ex- 
 tended in all directions. I saw a drove of cattle, wild with fright. 
 
134 WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 
 
 rushing up Market Street. I crouched beside a swayingf 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 swal- 
 lowed 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, pande- 
 monium 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. 
 
WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 135 
 
 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 audieruces- 
 
 Many of the operatic stars have given very interestnig accounts 
 of their experiences. Signor Caruso, the famous tenor and one of 
 the principals of the company, had one of the most thrilling experi- 
 ences. 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 .^Hs. 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." 
 
136 WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 
 
 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 China- 
 men 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 men- 
 tion it. Them Chinks would steal the money off a dead man's eyes.' " - 
 
 They say that Rossi, though almost i,n 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 yousself 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 !" 
 
WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES 137 
 
 In spite of the news of all the woe and svtflfering 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 con- 
 secutive 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 sav-e 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 de- 
 scriptions 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 
 1 80 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 Athenjeum Theatre, the new Masonic Tem- 
 
 138 
 
DISASTER SPREADS OVER THE GOLDEN STATE 139 
 
 pie, 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 Fran- 
 cisco, 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 popu- 
 lation, 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 
 
140 DISASTER SPREADS OVER THE GOLDEN STATE 
 
 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 earth- 
 quake and vi^as 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 tc 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 un- 
 injured, 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 east- 
 ward of the seat of serious earthquake activity. 
 
DISASTER SPREADS OVER THE GOLDEN STATE 141 
 
 Los Angeles and Santa Barbara escaped with a slight trem- 
 bling; 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 $2CX),ooo, 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 Men- 
 docino County, was practically wiped out by fire following the earth- 
 quake, 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 
 
142 DISASTER STREADS OVER THE GOLDEN STATE 
 
 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 se- 
 verely, 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 resi- 
 dences. 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 hast- 
 ened 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. 
 
 143 
 
144 ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE 
 
 Individual contributions of $100,000 were common. In addi- 
 tion 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 Wal- 
 dorf 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. 
 
ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE iaS 
 
 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 appro- 
 priating 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 
 10 
 
146 ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE 
 
 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 contri- 
 butions were forwa-rded until the fund accumulated to an unpre- 
 cedented 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 earth- 
 quake sufferers; never had there been such an awakening. As an 
 instance of the spirit displayed, one man came running into a bank- 
 ing 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 
 
ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE 147 
 
 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 Presi- 
 dent 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 contribu- 
 tions made directly to it. 
 
148 ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE 
 
 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 demon- 
 strated, 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, render- 
 ing 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 spec- 
 tacle of an entire nation straining every nerve to send succor to the 
 helpless and the suffering, and this spectacle has warmed the hearts 
 
ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE 149 
 
 of our people to the uttermost and inspired them to make the most 
 strenuous efiforts 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 ex- 
 ample of their enterprise, it may be said that their newspapers 
 hardly suspended at all, the Evening Post alone suspending publica- 
 tion 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 com- 
 posing 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 Tri- 
 bune. 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. Mean- 
 time, 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 to- 
 day 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. 
 
ISO ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE 
 
 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 
 
ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE 151 
 
 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 sol- 
 diers 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 com- 
 mittees 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 
 
152 ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE 
 
 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 XL 
 
 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 vtpon 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, 
 
 -153 
 
154 THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE FAST 
 
 and its buildings were accordingly unstable. A few minor earth- 
 quakes shook some of these down years agfo 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 rtiade 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 specvilators and moneyless newcomers 
 
THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST 155 
 
 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 Cliflf 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 
 
iS6 THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST 
 
 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 tem- 
 perature 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 
 
THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST 157 
 
 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 aban- 
 doned 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 
 th« padree «ame and gathered the Indians about Mission Dolores. 
 
158 THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST 
 
 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 CaUfornia, 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 Nea- 
 politans, 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 Avater 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 
 
THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST 159 
 
 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 respect- 
 able 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 pas- 
 sages in which the Chinese transacted their dark and devious afifairs 
 — as the smuggling of opium, the traffic in slave girls and the settle- 
 ment 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 modem 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 dis- 
 tinctive type; as far from the Easterner in psychology as the ex- 
 treme 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 ofif 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, 
 
 16© 
 
LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC i6i 
 
 the fruit farms came up to the very edge of the town, and the sur- 
 rounding 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, be- 
 ginning with a frame shanty where, in the early days, a prince of 
 French cooks used to exchange recipes for gold dust. Each suc- 
 ceeding restaurant of the name has moved farther downtown; and 
 the recent Poodle Dog stands — or stood — on the edge of the Ten- 
 derloin in a modern five-story building. And it tjrpified 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 cook- 
 ing. Every one who was any one in the town could be seen there 
 11 
 
i62 LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC 
 
 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 dia- 
 monds 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, hum- 
 bler, 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 f6remost, 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,, 
 
LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC 163 
 
 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 im- 
 poverished painter could square his grill and buflfet 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 
 
i64 LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC 
 
 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 influ- 
 ence. 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 Cali^rnia 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. 
 
LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC 165 
 
 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." 
 
1 66 LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC 
 
 Will those who left it after the fire ever get back to their old 
 citjr 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 ^^^^ 
 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." Heart- 
 rending 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 
 
 167 
 
PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO 169 
 
 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 
 tiie land mains. The whole point with all of us who own property 
 
170 PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 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 confla- 
 gration had ceased burning, the confident expectation that the city 
 would rise, Phcenix-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 de- 
 stroyed 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, chair- 
 man 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 esti- 
 mate showing the aggregate sum needed to repair or rebuild them. 
 ^The resolution suggested that steel frarnes 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 
 
PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO 171 
 
 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 appro- 
 priated to finish the Mare Island Navy Yard, in order that employ- 
 ment 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 Build- 
 ing, 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- 
 
172 PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 frame buildings to be erected with all speed. Many substantial 
 business men and property owners of San Francisco were in con- 
 sultation 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 sum- 
 moned 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 earth- 
 quake 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, 
 
PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO 173 
 
 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 news- 
 papers, 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 estabUshment 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 
 
174 PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 tHe contents of its fireproof vaults and remained practically un- 
 harmed, 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 im- 
 mediately 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 t^hat they would facilitate 
 the reconstruction of the city by a liberal advancement of funds. 
 
 One prominent Eastern capitalist expressed the general con- 
 viction in the following words : 
 
 "No great city, unless it dried up entirely from lack of commer- 
 cial 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 ad- 
 mitted 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. lYou 
 
PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO 175 
 
 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 Charles- 
 ton, Boston and Chicago, showed the spirit of material resurrection 
 in American communities, sore-smitten by calamity. After Gal- 
 veston had been made a desert of sand and debris, there were pre- 
 dictions 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 
 isplendid city than ever, and better prepared to resist future earth- 
 quake 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 
 
176 PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 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 dis- 
 aster 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 Belt 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 vol- 
 canic 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 i,8oo 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 iSth. The shock did not come unexpectedly. A month pre- 
 vious 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 Fran- 
 cisco there was another earthquake in the same island. Still greater 
 12 177 
 
178 THE EARTHQUAKE WAVE FELT ROUND THE EARTH 
 
 havoc was caused by it than by the earthquake in March, but fewer 
 Hves 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 Piati- 
 gorsk, 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 Fran- 
 cisco, 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 jnst 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 EARTHQUAKE WAVE FELT ROUND THE EARTH 179 
 
 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 earth- 
 quake 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 i8th, 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 govern- 
 ment seismograph at the capital, Wellington, recorded seismic 
 waves that apparently passed round the earth five times at intervals 
 of about four hours each. 
 
 Acrnss 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, oif 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 
 
i8o THE EARTHQUAKE WAVE FELT ROUND THE EARTH 
 
 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 instru- 
 ments 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 dis- 
 tance, near eneugh t© 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, thii 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, 
 
THE EARTHQUAKE WAVE FELT ROUND THE EARTH i8i 
 
 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 record- 
 ing 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 ob- 
 tained 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 indi- 
 cations 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. 
 
 182 
 
VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 183 
 
 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 threat- 
 ened 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 
 
i84 VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 
 
 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 fol- 
 lowing 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 
 

 
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VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 185 
 
 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 hun- 
 dred 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: 
 
i86 VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 
 
 "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 faJ 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, OCX) 
 houses had been partly crushed or utterly destroyed. On the 
 Ottajano side of the mountain, where the ashes fell in greatest pro- 
 
 / 
 
VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 187 
 
 fusion, 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 loth. 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 
 
i88 VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 
 
 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 court- 
 yard, 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 neglect-ed 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 
 
VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 189 
 
 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 loth 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 Hercu- 
 laneum 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 desolutely 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 
 
190 VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 
 
 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, 
 
VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 191 
 
 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,^nd 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 ofifered 
 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 
 
192 VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 
 
 toward the building the soldier shouted words of encouragement 
 and, climbing over a heap of ruins and braving a toppling wall, 
 entered the btiilding. 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 ex- 
 hausted, 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 accen- 
 tuated 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 
 
VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 193 
 
 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 sleep- 
 ing 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 ceme- 
 tery 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, ^^'^e 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 w4iat 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 
 
 13 
 
194 VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES I 
 
 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 Hke 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 
 
VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 195 
 
 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 esape?" 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." 
 
196 VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 
 
 "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 
 
VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 197 
 
 suflferers. 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 endur- 
 ance 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 
 
igg VESUVIUS DEVASTATES 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 any- 
 thing 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 decompo- 
 sition 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 
 sjiEiilar 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 
 
VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 199 
 
 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 cvit 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. Rotighly 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 narrov/ 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 corre- 
 spondents ascended the mountain they were surprised by the appa- 
 rition of natives, men wrinkled with age, who emerged from duo-- 
 
200 VESUVIUS DEVASTATES NAPLES 
 
 outs 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-hard- 
 ened 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 condi- 
 tions then existing. From what he say 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 ho 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 Fran- 
 cisco it is in place to append a description of some similar 
 events of older date. It is due to the same causes, what- 
 ever 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 com- 
 mon grave. Violent earthquakes are also of far more frequent oc- 
 currence 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 Alexan- 
 dria. The city of Antioch was a terrible sufferer from this afRic- 
 tion, it having been devastated some time before the Christian era, 
 
202 GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES 
 
 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 asso- 
 ciation 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 ist 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, v/hen 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 under- 
 ground thunders having rolled away, an awful silence ensued. The 
 panic-stricken multitudes were paralyzed with terror. Immedi- 
 ately after the ground began to heave v/ith a long and gentle swell, 
 
GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES 203 
 
 producing giddiness and faintness among the people. The tall 
 piles swayed to and fro, like willows in the wind. Shrieks of hor- 
 ror 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 
 
 GREAT EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON, NOV. i, 1753. 
 
 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 dwel- 
 lings. The terrible earth-wave overthrew the larger number of the 
 private houses in the city, burying their inhabitants under the 
 
204 GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES 
 
 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 bowlings 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 con- 
 siderable number of houses were left standing — fortunately tenant- 
 less — 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 multi- 
 tude 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 com- 
 pleted, which had cost much labor and expense. This the sea-wave 
 
GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES ^05 
 
 had spared, sweeping harmless by. But, alas ! it was only for a 
 moment. The vast structure itself, with the whole of its living bur- 
 den, sank instantaneously into an awful chasm which opened under- 
 neath. 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 Avithin 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 con- 
 tents. 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. 
 
2og GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES 
 
 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 sus- 
 tained. 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 resi- 
 dence, and several other fine palaces of the nobility and mansions 
 of the wealthy, the custom-houses, the warehouses filled with mer- 
 chandise, 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 car- 
 riages out of doors. None of the ofHcers 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, aid- 
 ing the wounded, and providing food for the hungry. 
 
 The royal family a.nd the members of the court exerted them- 
 selves to the uttermost, the ladies devoting themselves to the prep- 
 aration of lint and bandages, and to nursing the wounded, the sick. 
 
GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES 207 
 
 and the dying, of whom the numbers were overwhelming. Among 
 the sufferers were men of quaUty 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 govern- 
 ment 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 MSBON 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 sum- 
 mits ; 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. 
 
2o8 GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES 
 
 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 Mo- 
 rocco, there is said to have occurred a catastrophe much resemb- 
 ling 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 lim- 
 ited, 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 direc- 
 tion 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 up- 
 heaval of the ground, which was accompanied by the opening of 
 
GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES '°9 
 
 numerous large chasms, into some of which many houses were in- 
 gulfed, 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 re- 
 mained 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 fish- 
 ing 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 
 14 
 
2IO GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES 
 
 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 previ- 
 ously swept away, dashing to pieces the whole of the boats, drown- 
 ing 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 considera- 
 ble 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 espe- 
 cially 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 sub- 
 sequently died from privation and exposure, or from epidemic dis- 
 eases bred by the stagnant pools and the decaying carcases of men 
 
GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES - 211 
 
 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 Marchion- 
 ess 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 secur- 
 ing 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 devour- 
 ing 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 dis- 
 astrous 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, how- 
 ever, doubtless prove of more interest to our readers if we pass 
 over these ruinous disasters and confine ourselves to the less des- 
 tructive 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 vol- 
 canic 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 pufif of 
 smoke, and eruptive phenomena are confined to the minor form of 
 the geyser. 
 
 212 
 
EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES 213 
 
 We are by no means so free from the earthquake. SHght move- 
 ments 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 num- 
 ber 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 181 2 convulsion in the Mis- 
 sissippi Valley might have proved a much greater calamity but 
 for the fact that civilized man had not then largely invaded its cen- 
 tre 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 i8th 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, Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 This event, however, was of minor importance, being much 
 inferior to that of 18 12, in which year California and the Mississippi 
 Valley alike were affected by violent movements of the earths 
 
214 EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 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 dis- 
 tance 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 Fran- 
 cisco, many buildings being thrown down. Hardly any of brick or 
 stone escaped injury, though few lives were lost. In 1872 a dis- 
 turbance 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 Ovren'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, 181 1, and continued at intervals until 181 3. As a rule 
 they were more distinguished by frequency than violence, though 
 on several occasions they were severe and had marked effects. 
 
EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES 215 
 
 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 direc- 
 tion, 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 diame- 
 ter, 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 earth- 
 quakes 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 tlie earthquake move- 
 ments. 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 
 
2i6 EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 months. The disturbance of the earth, however, was not confined 
 to the United States, but affected nearly half of the western hemis- 
 phere, 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 re- 
 tired, 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 earth- 
 quakes of 181 2. 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 atten- 
 tion. 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 
 
EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 217 
 
 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 
 
 RUINOUS EFFECT OF THE CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE. 
 
 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 
 
2i8 EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 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 demoli- 
 tion down to the loss of chimney tops and the dislodgment of more 
 or less plastering. The number of buildings which were com- 
 pletely 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 dis- 
 figurement and a source of danger and inconvenience." In some 
 
EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES 219 
 
 places the railway track was curiously distorted. " It was often dis- 
 placed 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 num.erous " craterlets " were formed, from which 
 sand was ejected in considerable quantities. These are not un- 
 common 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 dis- 
 tricts which had been quite undisturbed by any concussions of the 
 earth. 
 
 Captain Button 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 un- 
 usual 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 
 
2 20 EARTHQUAKES OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 four years of rest. The movement of the earth-wave viras in gen- 
 eral 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 
 ialong 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 XVIIL 
 
 The Volcano and the Earthquake, Earth's 
 Demons of Destruction. 
 
 To most of us, dwellers upon the face of the earth, this terres- 
 trial 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 
 
 221 
 
222 EARTH'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTION 
 
 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 destroy- 
 ing, 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 an- 
 tithesis, the rainstorm, is at times a still more terrible visitant. From 
 the dense clouds pour frightful floods, rushing down the lofty 
 htlls, 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 suf- 
 fering 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?" 
 
EARTH'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTION 223 
 
 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, slum- 
 bering 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 burn- 
 ine rivers over leagfues 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 de- 
 nominated 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 
 
224 EARTH'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTION 
 
 way upward through the mountain, and to carry with them dis- 
 solved rocks, and the stones which block their passage. Some- 
 times, 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 habita- 
 tion 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 miid. 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 
 
EARTH'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTION '^S 
 
 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 con- 
 sonant with the facts of nature than myths usually are. In agree- 
 ment 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 
 IS 
 
226 EARTff'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTION 
 
 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 under- 
 ground 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 civil- 
 ization 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 possi- 
 bly 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 tlie explosive force of which we have spoken, the mountain 
 
EARTH'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTION ^27 
 
 r 
 
 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 subse- 
 quent 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 con- 
 trary, 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 sur- 
 rounding country, and associated with which are underground explo- 
 sions that seem like the sound of distant artillery. The mountain 
 
228 EARTH'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTIOlSr 
 
 quivers with internal convulsions, due to the efforts of its confined 
 forces to find an opening. The drying up of wells and disappear- 
 ance of springs are apt to take place, the water sinking downward 
 through cracks newly made in the rocks. Finally the fierce un- 
 chained 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 181 5, 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. Float- 
 ing 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 be- 
 come 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'S DEMONS OF DESTRUCTION 229 
 
 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 erup- 
 tion 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 OUTFLOW.? 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 abund- 
 ance that their decay caused a fever in the vicinity. The volcanoes 
 of Java have often buried large tracts of fertile country under 
 volcanic mud. 
 
23° EARTH'S DEMONS. OF DESTRUCTION 
 
 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 erup- 
 tion ; 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. 
 
T 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Theories of Volcanic and Earthquake Action. 
 
 HOUGH the first for'mation of a volcano (Italian, vulcano, 
 from Vulcan, the Roman god of fire) has seldom been wit- 
 nessed, it would seem that it is marked by earthquake move- 
 ments 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, flashest 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 
 
n 
 
 o 
 
 3 H^ 
 
 " W 
 
 M 
 
 1" td' 
 ""We 
 
 m 
 
 O 
 
 o 2. 
 
 -1 ^ 
 
 3 
 
 o > 
 p ^ 
 
 " o 
 
VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 233 
 
 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 sur- 
 faces with irregular bubble-cavities, when they are called scoritz 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 enor- 
 mous 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 mar- 
 vellous 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°, 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 
 
234 VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 
 
 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 diartieter ; Cotopaxi, 
 in the Andes, 18,887 ^^^^ 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 burst- 
 ing 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 enor- 
 mous. Lava varies very much in liquidity and in the rate at which 
 
i' 
 
 
 :^ 
 
 .all 
 life 
 
236 VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 
 
 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. Glov>r- 
 ing 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 exist- 
 ing 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 
 
VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 237 
 
 of tons on the square inch, the appHcation 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 sup- 
 pose 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 sub- 
 jected 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 VOLCANOE 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, open- 
 ing a passage for the pent-up forces to the surface, and thus reliev- 
 ing 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 : 
 
238 VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 
 
 "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 
 
VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 239 
 
 occurred in the midst of a plain, and built up 'lava cones,' or low 
 mounds, with immensely expanded bases. Illustrations are fur- 
 nished 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 com- 
 pletely fluid, or in a viscous condition, the vapors and gases con- 
 tained 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 con- 
 duit 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. 
 
240 VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 
 
 " 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 por- 
 tion 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. O''- ^" 
 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 
 
VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION ^i' 
 
 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 forcCv. 
 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 aclmitting 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 
 
 i6 
 
242 VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 
 
 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 dur- 
 ing 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 con- 
 stantly being washed down upon them from above. This process 
 is called the blanketing process. 
 
 " Each additional layer of sediment, while not raising the level 
 ot 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 crystaliza- 
 tion 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 tre- 
 mendous 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 
 
VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 243 
 
 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 open- 
 ing 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 dimi- 
 nution in the earth's diameter due to the loss of heat must be 
 exceedingly small, even in a long period of time. The cause, how- 
 ever, is continually in operation, and, accordingly, the crust of the 
 earth has from time to time to be accommodated to the fact that 
 
244 
 
 VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 
 
 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 im- 
 portant 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 
 
 EARTHQUAKE AT MESSINA, 1783. 
 
 islands, or beneath the bed of the ocean, must have a lessening acre- 
 age year by year. These rocks must therefore submit to compression, 
 either continuously or from time to time, and the necessary yield- 
 ing 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. 
 
VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION ^45 
 
 amd perhaps generally, not proceed with uniformity, but rathei 
 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 phe- 
 nomenon, merely a small rearrangement of the rocks in the crust 
 of the earth, in pursuance of the necessary work of accommodat- 
 ing 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 phenome- 
 non of an earthquake. 
 
 " When the earth is shaken by one of those occasional adjust- 
 ments of the crust which I have described, the wave that spreads 
 like a pulsation from the centre of agitation extends all over our 
 
246 VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 
 
 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 destruc- 
 tive 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 obser- 
 vation. 
 
 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 adjust- 
 ments are possible may provide, as it were, a safety-valve for other 
 places in the same part of the world. Instead of a general shrink- 
 ing, 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 char 
 acter, while in the less fortunate regions the earthquakes are more 
 or less perennial. 
 
 " Now, suppose an earthquake takes place in Japan, it origi- 
 nates a series of vibrations through our globe. We must here dis- 
 tinguish between the rocks — I might almost say the comparatively 
 pliant rocks — which form the earth's crust, and those which form 
 
VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION ^47 
 
 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 fioor of the ocean, will carry the message all 
 over the earth. As these rocks are flexible, at all events by com- 
 parison with the earth's interior, the vibrations will be correspond- 
 ingly 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 pro- 
 ducts 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 num- 
 4ber 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 
 
248 VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 
 
 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 fre- 
 quently seen playing over them, and sometimes these flames are 
 brilliantly colored, through the presence of small quantities of cer- 
 tain metallic oxides. Such volcanic flames, hov/ever, 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 orifices 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 
 
K j^ ^ 
 
VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION ^49 
 
 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 mater- 
 ials 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 J 
 applied. Lavas present a general resemblance to the slags and 
 clinkers which are formed in our furnaces and brick-kilns, and con- 
 sist, like them, of various stony substances which have been more 
 or less perfectly fused. When we come to study the chemical com- 
 position 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 tex- 
 ture 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," 
 
2S° VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 
 
 Pumice consists of a mass of minute glass bubbles ; these bubbles 
 do not usually, however, retain their globular form, but are elon- 
 gated 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 quanti- 
 ties 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 Vesu- 
 vian 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 gra- 
 dually 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 exces- 
 sively finely divided was it, that it penetrated into all drawers, 
 boxes, and the most closely fastened receptacles, filling them com- 
 pletely. The fragmentary materials ejected from volcanoes are 
 
VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION 251 
 
 often given the name of cinders or ashes. These, however, are terms 
 of convenience only, and do not properly describe the volcanic mate- 
 rial. 
 
 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 manufac- 
 tured 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, 
 assum.es 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 primi- 
 tive 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 re- 
 newed activity ; and it is quite impossible, in many cases, to distin- 
 guish 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 n>aterials 
 
ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH 253 
 
 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 dur- 
 ing 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 pow- 
 erful 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 un- 
 equal 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 Ni- 
 syros, in the ^gean Sea. 
 
254 ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH 
 
 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 vol- 
 canoes 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 conti- 
 nental 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, how- 
 ever, 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 
 
ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH ^SS 
 
 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 subma- 
 rine 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 Kam- 
 chatka 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 -^ccur here. 
 
256 
 
 ACf/VE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH 
 
 Farther south, the same chain is probably continued by the 
 four active volcanoes of New Guinea, one or more submarine vol- 
 canoes, arrd 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 1 50 active volcanoes exist in the 
 
 MOUNT EREBUS. 
 
 Two volcanoes exist in the frozen seas of the Antarctic zone. Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, whose smoking 
 
 summits indicate a strange conjunction of the forces of fire and frost. 
 
 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 
 
ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH '57 
 
 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° 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 Gautemala, 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 volca 
 noes of Ecuador, Bolivia and Chili, 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 
 17 
 
2S8 
 
 ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH 
 
 series of volcanic mountains is much more broken and interrupted 
 than the other two, and a greater proportion of its vents are ex- 
 tinct. 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, Ice- 
 
 
 
 
 ^TH-iramrnj '-— J^JiJniiiWM^iO Y'^ T' 
 
 MOUNT HECLA— ICELAND. 
 One of the two most famous of the great Icelandic volcssoes, 
 
 land and the Faroe Islands, to the Hebrides and the north of Ire- 
 land. 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. He- 
 lena, 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 
 
ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH ^59 
 
 the Mediterranean to Asia Minor, the great majority of the volca- 
 noes 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 throv/n up along three well- 
 marked bands and the branches proceeding from them. The first 
 and most important of the^^e bands is nearly 10,000 miles in length, 
 and with its branches co::.,.ains more than 150 active volcanoes ; the 
 second is 8,000 miles in length, and includes about 100 active vol- 
 canoes ; the third is much more brokep 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 net- 
 work 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. 
 
26o ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH 
 
 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 exist- 
 ence 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 geog- 
 raphy. 
 
 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 fath- 
 oms, 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 
 
ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH 261 
 
 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 vol- 
 canoes lying parallel to them. This is strikingly exhibited by the 
 great mountain-masses which lie on the western side of the Ameri- 
 can 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 sum- 
 mits. At many points, however, along the sides of these great 
 chains we find that fissures have been opened and lines of vol- 
 canoes 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 pictur- 
 esque 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 pro- 
 duced 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 
 
262 ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH 
 
 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 dimen- 
 sions 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 exam- 
 ples 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 observa- 
 tions 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 
 
ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH 263 
 
 which are undergoing upheaval and subsidence respectively, we 
 shall find that nearly all the active volcanoes of the globe are sit- 
 uated upon rising areas, and that volcanic phenomena are con- 
 spicuously 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 ope-ning 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 occa- 
 sion 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 — enor- 
 mous breaks, extending for thousands of miles, and the result of in- 
 ternal 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 them- 
 selves when the portion of the great crack upon which they lie is 
 closed. The greatest of these fissures is that along the vast sin- 
 uous 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 lii^e 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 an- 
 cients as a cone-shaped mountain with a flat top, on which 
 was a deep circular valley filled with vines and grass, and sur- 
 rounded 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 occured 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 enorm- 
 ous quantity of steam sent up, together with the deluge of rain 
 
 that fell, produced torrents on the mountain-side, which, carrying 
 
 264 
 
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 265 
 
 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 after- 
 ward, 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. 
 
2gg THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 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. i 700 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 pro- 
 gressed far in this city, on account of its extreme difficulty, though 
 various excellent specimens of art-work have been discovered, in- 
 cluding the finest examples of mural painting extant from antiq- 
 uity. 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 con- 
 temporary 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. 
 
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 267 
 
 "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 cele- 
 brated by your pen, the glory of it, I am assured, will be rendered 
 forever illustrious. And, notwithstanding he perished by a misfor- 
 tune which, as it involved at the same time a most beautiful country 
 in ruins, and destroyed so many populous cities, seems to promise 
 
 MOUNT VESUVIUS BEFORE ERUPTION OF A. D. 79. 
 
 him an everlasting remembrance; notwithstanding he has himself 
 composed many and lasting works ; yet I am persuaded the men- 
 tion of him in your immortal works will greatly contribute to eter- 
 nize 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 wor- 
 thy of being read ; but doubly happy are they who are blessed with 
 
26& THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 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 tak- 
 ing 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; occa- 
 sioned, 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 philoso- 
 phical 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 
 
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 269 
 
 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 STABILE 
 
 " 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 ut- 
 most 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, en- 
 couraging and exhorting him to keep up his spirits ; and the more 
 to dissipate his fears he -ordered, with an air of unconcern, the 
 
^^° THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 baths to be got ready; when, after having bathed, he sat down to 
 supper with great cheerfuhiess, 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 unconcered 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 con- 
 sideration. 
 
 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, 
 
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 271 
 
 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 com- 
 pany, and obliged him to rise. He raised himself up with the 
 assistance of two of his servants, and instantly fell down dead, suf- 
 focated, 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 with- 
 out 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 imme- 
 diately after the accident happened, and before there was any time 
 to vary the truth. You will choose out of this narrative such cir- 
 cumstances 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 
 
2 72 THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 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, phe- 
 nomena 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 speci- 
 mens 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,' 
 
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 273 
 
 " My uncle having left us, I pursued the studies which pre- 
 vented ray 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 sepa- 
 rated the sea from the buildings. As I was at that time but eigh- 
 teen 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 
 '.ecurity. 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 observ- 
 ing 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 
 
274 THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 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 her- 
 self, 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 
 
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 275 
 
 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 distin- 
 guishing 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 pari 
 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 r 
 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 man- 
 kind 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. 
 
2 76 THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 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 cov- 
 ered 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 pre- 
 dictions. 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 Pom- 
 peii 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 pic- 
 tures 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 
 
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 277 
 
 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 out- 
 let of an extinct volcano, and that long after the volcano ceased to 
 be active it emitted gases as fatal to animal life as those suffocat- 
 ing vapors which annihilated all the cattle on the Island of Lance- 
 rote, in the Canaries, in the year 1730. Its name signifies "bird- 
 less," 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 A'hlch had before been given to Avernus, and was 
 regarded as th^ 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 
 
278 
 
 THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 his homeward way to Naples past the crater of Vesuvius, and heard 
 issuing therefrom the voice of his mother in great agony. He after- 
 ward 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 attrac- 
 tions for strangers who are visiting Naples, There is a fascina- 
 tion about that awful slayer of cities which few can resist, and no 
 
 A LATER VIEW OF MOUNT VESUVIUS 
 
 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 
 
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS »79 
 
 sense, and the first in another ; but to watch the diggers at Pom- 
 peii 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 cham- 
 ber 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. ' Wel- 
 come' 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 dis- 
 believed, — 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 ofifice who were never to sit. There is nothing like this 
 elsewhere. 
 
28o THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 " 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 inesti- 
 mable 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 threshhold 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 m.ust 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 mas- 
 ter gave a banquet. Thus a wayfarer in the street could see, be- 
 yond the hall described and its busy servants, the white columns of 
 the peristyle, with creepers trained about them, flowers all around, 
 and j'=:ts 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 
 
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 281 
 
 " 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 sleep- 
 ing 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 cer- 
 tainly 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 ^dile — so called from the fact that ' Pansam 
 ^d.' is inscribed in red characters by the doorway — the cook seems 
 to have been employed in frying eggs at the moment when increas- 
 ing 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 
 
282 THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS 
 
 manners and habits of life of a cultivated and flourishing popula- 
 tion 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 destruc» 
 tive, 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. 
 
 M' 
 
 OUNT 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 NUGVO 
 
 In 1538 a startling evidence was given that there was no de- 
 cline 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 Aver- 
 nus, 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 widtk The surface cracked, steam escaped, and at last, 
 
 283 
 
284 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 early on the morning of the 29th, a greater rent was made, from 
 which were vomited furiously "smoke, fire, stones and mud com- 
 posed 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 shrub- 
 bery, 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 rap- 
 idly down the mountain side, leaving ruin along their paths. Re- 
 sina, 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. 
 
VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 285 
 
 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 
 jntil 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 in- 
 habitants. 
 
 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 1 767 
 
 From the loth 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 dis- 
 tance. 
 
 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 Sep- 
 tember it overflowed the crater, and ran down the mountaia 
 
286 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 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 i8th 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 occu- 
 pied 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 amouutain 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 dark- 
 ened 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, 
 w'nen, 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 
 
VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 287 
 
 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 tv/o 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. 1 
 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 subter- 
 ranean 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 
 
j88 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 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 pris- 
 oners 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 vio- 
 lent 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 preced- 
 ing 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 vol- 
 cano 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, 
 
VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 289 
 
 destroying the hopes of harvest throughout a wide district. They 
 fell in abundance thirty miles distant, and the dust of the explo- 
 sion 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 1 794 
 
 Breislak remarked certain changes in the character of the earth- 
 motions during this six hours' eruption, which led him to some par' 
 ticular 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 uninter- 
 rupted 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 fermenta- 
 tion 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. 
 19 
 
29° VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 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 i6th, and then followed 
 heavy discharges of ashes, violent shocks of earthquakes, thunder 
 and lightning in the columns of vapors and ashes, and finally heavy 
 
VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 291 
 
 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^ 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 oflF 
 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 instruc- 
 tive phenomenon. 
 
 Imrrjense injury was done to the rich territory of Somma, Otta- 
 jano and Bosco by heavy rains, which swept along cinders, broke 
 
292 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 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 inter- 
 vals it manifested much activity, though not equaling the terrible 
 eruptions of its past history. The severest eruptions in that cen- 
 tury 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 vol- 
 cano, 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 dis- 
 turbed mountain and over the district of which it is the somewhat 
 untrustworthy safety-valve. 
 
VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 293 
 
 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 per- 
 petual 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 over- 
 spread 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, chesnut, 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 sul- 
 phurous vapors are continually evolved. 
 
294 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 The great height of Etna has exerted a remarkable influence 
 on its general conformation : for the volcanic forces have rarely 
 been of sufificient energy to throw the lava quite up to the crater 
 at the summit. The consequence has been, that numerous subsi- 
 diary 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 neverthe- 
 less 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 delfuoco 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 arei 
 generally irregular clouds of sra6k&,/erilli or volcanic lightnings, 
 
VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 295 
 
 hollow intonations and local earthquakes that often alarm the sur- 
 rounding country as far as Messina, and have given the whole pro- 
 vince 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. 
 
 
 
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 .MMi ■*■• tu' 
 
 
 ' *» 
 
 ■■4 
 
 
 V»* 
 
 
 
 -^ 
 
 X.'^-J 
 
 >.-- 
 
 J'tAf" 
 
 MOUNT ETNA 
 
 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 
 
296 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 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 ex'ter- 
 nally cold lava-beds after rain ; which, having penetrated through 
 the cracks, has found its way to the heated mass within, 
 
 THE ERUPTION OF 1 669 
 
 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 Nico- 
 losi, situated ten miles inland from Catania, and about twenty miles 
 from the top of Etna. The eruption began with the sudden open- 
 ing 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 
 
I 
 
 THE HAVOC OF THE EARTHQUAKE. 
 
 St. Dominick's Church, on Stevens, near Pine Street, was destroyed by earthquake 
 
 in a district not reached by the fire. One of the cupolas which adorned 
 
 the building was entirely destroyed, while the other remained 
 
 suspended like a bell on the top of the spire. 
 
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VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 297 
 
 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 Bel- 
 passo, 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 com- 
 posed. 
 
 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 Masca- 
 lucia 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 pro- 
 gression 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 
 
298 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 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 con- 
 solidated, 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 calcu- 
 lated 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. 
 
VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 299 
 
 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 Mom- 
 pilieri. 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 remark- 
 able; 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 val- 
 leys 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 sum- 
 mit. 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. 
 
300 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 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 18 19, which presented 
 some peculiarities. Near the point whence the highest stream of 
 lava issued in 181 1, 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. 
 
VESUVIUS. ETNA AND STROMBOLI 3°' 
 
 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, for- 
 tunately 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 oi 
 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. 
 
302 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 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 con- 
 tinued 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 erup- 
 tions 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 
 
VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 303 
 
 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 fprce 
 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 con- 
 tinuance of small explosions, there is a frequent succession of more 
 violent eruptions, at intervals varying in length from seven to fif- 
 teen 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 com- 
 panions, stretched his head over the precipice, and, looking right 
 down into the mouth of one of the vents of the crater immedi- 
 ately under him, watched the play of liquid lava within it. Its 
 surface resembled molten silver, and was constantly rising and fall- 
 ing 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 inter- 
 vals 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, 
 
304 VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI 
 
 bursting with a crackling noise, threw out to the height of about 
 1 200 feet large quantities of red-hot stones and scoriae, which, des- 
 cribing paraboHc 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 com- 
 plete 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 sul- 
 phur 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 concen- 
 trated 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^tnain 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 Ice- 
 land 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 
 
 305 
 
3o6 GREAT ICELANDIC VOLCANOES 
 
 and valleys in their sides. When, therefore, an erupti'on 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 i860, was accompanied by dread- 
 ful 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 coast- 
 line 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 ex- ' 
 tended description is worthy of being given, 
 
GREAT ICELANDIC VOLCANOES 307 
 
 Of these two memorable eruptions, that of Skaptar-JokuU 
 began on the nth 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 nth immense tor- 
 rents 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 
 1 50 feet. 
 
 A TORRENT OF LAVA 
 
 On the 1 8th 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. 
 
3o8 GREAT ICELANDIC VOLCANOES 
 
 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 direc- 
 tion 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 care- 
 ful 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. 
 
GREAT ICELANDIC VOLCANOES 309 
 
 The devastation directly wrought by the lava currents them- 
 selves was not the whole of the evils they brouglit 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 untill 1845, when Mount Hecla again became 
 disastrously active. Mount Hecla has been the most frequent in its 
 
3IO GREAT ICELANDIC VOLCANOES 
 
 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 dur- 
 ing 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 Brit- 
 ish Islands by a fall of volcatiic ashes in the Orkneys, which oc- 
 curred on the night of September 2nd during a violent storm. 
 This palpable hint was soon confirmed by direct intelligence from 
 Copenhagen. On the ist of September a severe earthquake, fol- 
 lowed 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 north- 
 ern 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 im- 
 passable even on horseback. 
 
 About a fortnight later there was a fresh eruption, of greater 
 violence, which lasted twenty-two hours, and was accompanied by 
 
GREAT ICELANDIC VOLCANOES 3" 
 
 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 contin- 
 ued 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 il- 
 luminated 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 dis- 
 tance of between four and five miles. The rivers were flooded by 
 the melting of ice and snow which had accumulated on the moun- 
 tain. 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 peculiaf murrain. Fortunately, owing to 
 the nature of the district through which the lava passed, there was 
 on this occasion no loss of human life. 
 
312 X^REAT ICELANDIC VOLCANOES 
 
 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 accom- 
 paniments of volcanic eruptions everywhere ; but owing to the 
 coldness and dryness of the air into which the vapors from the Ice- 
 landic 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 i8th of August, 
 1783, while the great eruption of Skaptar Jokull was in progress, 
 an immense fire-ball passed over England and the European con- 
 tinent 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. 
 
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 THE VOLCANIC OUTBREAK OF MT. PELEE May 8, 1902. 
 
 The only photograph taken during the height of the eruption, a scene as 
 
 grand as it was appalling. 
 
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 volca- 
 noes 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 vol- 
 canoes of Java are constantly in eruption, while others are inactive. 
 
 One of their number, Galung Gung, was previous to 1822 cov- 
 ered 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 approach- 
 ing 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 
 
 313 
 
314 VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 immense columns of hot water, boiling mud mixed with burning 
 brimstone, ashes and stones, were hurled upwards from the moun- 
 tain 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 rush- 
 ing along to the sea. No less than 114 villages were destroyed, 
 and above 4,000 persons were killed by this terrible catastrophe. 
 
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 315 
 
 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 con- 
 tinued to live on its sides. Suddenly this enormous mountain fell 
 in, and left a gap fifteen miles long and six broad, Forty vil- 
 lages were destroyed, some being carried down and others over- 
 whelmed 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 ^.nd 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 is- 
 land dominions, has added largely to its wealth in volcanic moun- 
 tains. The famous Hawaiian craters, far the greatest in the world, 
 
3i6 VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 now belong to our national estate, and the Philippine Islands con- 
 tain 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 ris- 
 ing 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 great- 
 est and most destructive eruption took place in 181 2, the year of the 
 great eruption of the St. Vincent volcano. On this fatal occasion 
 several towns were destroyed and no less than 1 2,000 people lost 
 their lives. The debris flung forth from the crater were so abundant 
 
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS %xi 
 
 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 coun- 
 try, more than six thousand houses being ruined by the rushing 
 flood. 
 
 BULUSAN AND TAAL 
 
 Bulusan, a volcano on the southern extremity of the island, re- 
 sembles 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 depres- 
 sion, 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 
 
3i8 VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 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 dis- 
 turbed 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 diist 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 inter- 
 vals. 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. 
 
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 319 
 
 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 ac- 
 tive 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 dis- 
 trict 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 erup- 
 tion 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 with- 
 out a rival in the world. This is named Tomboro. Of its various 
 eruptions the most furious on record was that of 18 15. This, as 
 we are told by Sir Stamford Raffles, far exceeded in force and dur- 
 ation any of the known outbreaks of Etna or Vesuvius. The 
 
320 VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 ground trembled and the echoes of its roar were heard through an 
 area of i,ooo 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 loth 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 ascend- 
 ing separately to a very great height, their tops united in the air in 
 a troubled, confused manner. In a 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, adjoin- 
 ing 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 float- 
 ing 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. 
 
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 3^1 
 
 No explosions were heard till the whirlwind had ceased, at about 
 II P.M. From midnight till the evening of the nth, they con- 
 tinued without intermission. After that time their violence 
 moderated, and they were heard only at intervals ; but the ex- 
 plosions 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 cer- 
 tainly 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 v/hich 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. 
 
322 VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 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 vol- 
 cano, and is credited in history with several very disastrous erup- 
 tions. The last of these was in 1 707, 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. Accord- 
 ing 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," 
 
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 3^3 
 
 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 thou- 
 sand 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 sul- 
 phur 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 tempt- 
 ing 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 corhparatively 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. 
 
324 VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 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 dark- 
 ness 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 after- 
 ward, 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. 
 
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 3^5 
 
 " The original cone of the mountain," he continues, " had been 
 truncated at an acute angle to its axis. From our very feet a pre- 
 cipitous 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 
 
326 VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 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. Nor- 
 man 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. 
 
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 3^7 
 
 Of the remaining volcanic regions of the Pacific, the New Zea- 
 land 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 exhib- 
 its 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 Tara- 
 wera, 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 
 
328 VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 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 contin- 
 ually 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 throw- 
 ing 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 deli- 
 cate 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 
 
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 329 
 
 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 
 
 PINK AND WHITE TERRACES OF LAKE ROTO MAHANA, NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 Auckland Lake region with a tremendous earthquake, followed dur- 
 ing 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 sup- 
 posed to be extinct, and embracing an area of one hundred and 
 twenty miles by twenty. 
 
330 VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 
 
 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 vio- 
 lent 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 gran- 
 deur. 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 
 
VOLCANOES OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 331 
 
 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, unfortun- 
 ately 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 dis- 
 covery 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 con- 
 tinually from the summit immense volumes of volcanic fumes, illumi- 
 nated 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 Hes the archi- 
 pelago formerly known as the Sandwich Islands, now collec- 
 tively 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 400c 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 
 332 
 
WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 333 
 
 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 moun- 
 tain 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^ and a width oi 2^ 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 sur- 
 face 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 archi- 
 pelago. 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 perpen- 
 dicular 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 
 
334 WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 
 
 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 discon- 
 
WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 335 
 
 nected 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 roll- 
 ing plain. But such a pit ! It is quite nine miles in circumfer- 
 ence, 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 dis- 
 tance along its margin, in the form of steam-cracks, jets of sul- 
 phurous 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 phe- 
 nomena 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 god- 
 dess 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 
 
336 WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 
 
 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 difftcult 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 forma- 
 tion 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. 
 
WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 
 
 337 
 
 " 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 
 
 _ -«■ tx, -1J 
 
 
 
 
 ■WVo . 
 
 *^?!.* ^v -J? - 
 
 '^ti**^ 
 
 CRATER OF KILAUEA, HAWAII 
 
 Fiery Lake of Molten Lava 
 
 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. 
 
 22 
 
338 WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 
 
 There were groanings, rumblings, and detonations ; rv,shings, hisS" 
 ings, 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 move- 
 ment 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 gleatn, nor 
 blocxl 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 
 
WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 339 
 
 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 south- 
 west ; nearly a mile in width, and apparently 800 feet deep. The 
 bottom was covered with Ikva, and the southwestern and northern 
 parts of it were one vast fiood of burning matter in a state of ter- 
 rific ebullition, rolling to and fro its ' fiery surges ' and flaming 
 billows. Fifty-one conical islands, of varied form and size, con- 
 taining 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 shal- 
 low, and that the basin in which it was contained was separated by 
 a stratum of solid matter from the great volcanic abyss, which con- 
 stantly 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 per- 
 pendicular for about 400 feet, and rose from a wide horizontal 
 ledge of solid black lava of irregular breadth, but extending com- 
 pletely 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. 
 
340 WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 
 
 "It was evident that the large crater had been recently filled 
 with liquid lava up to this black ledge, and had, by some subterra- 
 neous 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. 
 
WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 34i 
 
 The quantities of lava ejected in some of the recent eruptions 
 have been enormous. The river-Hke 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, 
 'Standoff! 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 fa~t 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. Devour- 
 ing fires are near us. With sure and solemn progress the glowing 
 
342 WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 
 
 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 burn- 
 ing destruction have swept wildly and widely over the top and 
 down the sides of the mountain. The wrathful stream has over- 
 come 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 1 859 AND 1 865 
 
 In January, 1859, Mauna Loa was again at its fire-play, throw- 
 ing 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, charac- 
 terized by similar phenomena, particularly the throwing up of jets 
 of lava. This fiery fountain continued to play without intermission 
 
WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 343 
 
 for twenty days and nights, varying only as respects the height to 
 which the jet arose, which is said to have ranged between loo and 
 i,ooo feet, the mean diameter of the jet being about loo 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 circum- 
 ference; was accumulated round the orifice whence the jet ascended. 
 It was composed of solid matters ejected with the lava, and it con- 
 tinued 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 dis- 
 cernible 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 Novem- 
 ber 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 
 
344 WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 
 
 no explosions while we were near the flow, only a tremendous roar- 
 ing like ten thousand blast furnaces all at work at once." 
 
 This was the .most extensive flow of recent years, and its pro« 
 gress from the interior plain through the dense forests above Hilo 
 and out on to the o'pen levels close to the town was startling and 
 menacing enough. Through the woods especially it was a turbu- 
 lent, 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 \& 
 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 per- 
 fectly 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 aotable 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 over- 
 flowed its vast crater. To do so would need an almost inconceiv- 
 able volume of liquid rock material. But it approached this cul- 
 mination 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 frorh 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 
 
WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 345 
 
 the ocean twenty miles from land. An eye-witness of this extraor- 
 dinary 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 dis- 
 played 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 broad- 
 side of heavy artillery. Streaks of the intensest light glanced like 
 
346 WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 
 
 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 un- 
 looked-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 Sus- 
 pended 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 dark- 
 ness, 
 
 " 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 
 
WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 347 
 
 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 pass- 
 age through which the lake of lava made its way unseen to the 
 ocean's depths. The Rev. Mr. Baker, probably the most adven- 
 turesome 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 com- 
 motion 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 tradi- 
 tion 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 angen 
 
348 WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS 
 
 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 Kamapuaa, 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 para- 
 lized 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 attend- 
 ants, 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 super- 
 stitions die away. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Popocatapetl and Other Volcanoes of Mexico 
 and Central America. 
 
 M' 
 
 EXICO 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° north latitude by a range of volcanic mountains, run- 
 ning 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 south- 
 ward 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 quies- 
 cent. 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. 
 
 349 
 
35° VOLCANIC WORK IN MEXICO 
 
 Popocatepetl, the hill that smokes, in the Mexican language, 
 the huge mountain clothed in eternal snows, and regarded by the 
 idolators 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 eleva- 
 tion, 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 suffo- 
 cated to the lower portions of the mountain. 
 
 Some time after another attempt was made ; and upon this 
 occasion with a definite object. The invaders hac nearly exhausted 
 their stock of gunpowder, and Cortes organised a party to ascend 
 
VOLCANIC WORK IN MEXICO 35' 
 
 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 expe- 
 rienced 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 i,ooo 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 dally- 
 ing with his task as if in contempt of the danger, till he had leisurely 
 filled his basket, when the signal was given and he was drawn up. 
 
352 VOLCANIC WORK IN MEXICO 
 
 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 descenced 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 indi- 
 cations 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 be- 
 tween 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 blad- 
 der. 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. 
 
VOLCANIC WORK IN MEXICO 
 
 353 
 
 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 
 
 
 
 
 -. .4«J£ 
 
 \ s 
 
 JORULLO, THE GREAT MEXICAN VOLCANO 
 
 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 
 23 ° 
 
354 VOLCANIC WORK IN MEXICO 
 
 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 fre- 
 quent, 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° 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 1 20 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 cultiva- 
 tion, and the volcano is in a state of quiescence. 
 
 The crater of Popocatepetl, which towers to a height of 
 1 7,000 feet, is a vast circular basin, whose nearly vertical walls are 
 in some parts of a pale rose tint, in others quite black. The 
 
VOLCANIC WORK IN MEXICO 355 
 
 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 J 856, by 
 Baron Miiller, to whose mind the crater appeared like the entrance 
 to a lower world of horrible darkness. He was struck with aston- 
 ishment 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 connec- 
 tion with the earthquake at St. Thomas, which took place on the 
 1 8th 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 
 
3S<5 VOLCANIC WORK IN MEXICO 
 
 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. Taju- 
 malco, which was in eruption at the time of the great earthquake 
 of 1863, yields great quantities of sulphur, as also does Quesalte- 
 nango. The most famous is the Volcan de Agua (Water Vol- 
 cano), so ca!lled 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 cliain 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, o"^ o^ 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 indi- 
 cated 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 Archi- 
 pelago, 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 UD 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 
 
 357 
 
S^S TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 
 
 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 per- 
 haps 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 fright- 
 ful detonations resounded, and after a time a rain of pumice began 
 to fall at places ten miles distant. For miles round fierce flashes 
 
TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 359 
 
 of lightning rent the vapor, and at a disiar.ce 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 tre- 
 mendous volcanic outburst, in its intensity, known in human his- 
 tory. 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 coinparatively insignificant 
 outbursts took place later, 
 
 FAR-REACHING DESTRUCTION 
 
 The eruption spread ruin and death over many surrounding 
 leagues. At Krakotoa iteelf, 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 ic to float upon the water, 
 at places formed great floating islands which covered the sea for 
 rc'les, and sometimes rose from four to seven feet above it, proving 
 9 serious obstacle to navigation. On vessels near by dust fell to 
 
36o TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 
 
 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 dark- 
 ness. 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 erup- 
 tion. 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 
 
A STREET IN CHINATOWN. 
 The largest Chinese colony in America occupied the northeastern section 
 of San Francisco. Its flimsy buildings made it an 
 
 easy prey to the flames. , 
 
TWO OF THE RUINED RESTDENCFS. 
 
 Below, the magnificent home of Charles Crocker, one of San Francisco's 
 wealthiest men. Above, the Stanford house. 
 
TWO PANORAMAS OF SAN FRANCISCO. 
 Below, taken from a western hill, showing the Hebrew Synagogue in the 
 foreground. Above, a bird's-eye view of the 
 business portion of the city. 
 
TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 361 
 
 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 explosio/i 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 vol- 
 canoes 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 enor- 
 mous 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 elec- 
 tricity 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. 
 
;62 TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 
 
 " This proved to be the case, for soon after streams of lava 
 poured down the mountain sides into the valleys, sweeping every- 
 thing before them. About two o'clock on Monday morning — we 
 are drawing on the account of an eye-witness — the great cloud sud- 
 denly 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 vilages 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 aggre- 
 gated 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 qtiantity 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 
 
TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA %(>% 
 
 reported that Papandayang had been spHt 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 por- 
 tion 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, 
 
364 TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 
 
 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 Krakatao explosions was 
 plainly heard at a distance of at least 2,200 miles, and in one in- 
 stance — that recorded from Rodriguez — of nearly 3,000. The 
 sound travelled to Ceylon, Burmah, Manila, New Guinea and West- 
 ern 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 dissemi- 
 nation of the great ocean wave, which in a like manner seems to have 
 
TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 365 
 
 encircled the earth, since high waves, without evident cause, appear- 
 ed 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 board- 
 walk 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 re- 
 peating 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 cen- 
 turies there had been no fresh outbreak. It almost seemed as if 
 
S65 TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 
 
 Krakatoa might be regarded as a volcano that had becorne 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 iocreased 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 v/axed 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 trag- 
 edy of Krakatoa took place. Many thousands of the unfortunate 
 inhabitants of the adjacent shores of Sumatra and Java were des- 
 tined 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 
 
TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAK'ATOA 3^ 7 
 
 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 vio- 
 lence, and the windows rattled as if heavy artillery were being dis- 
 charged in the streets. And still these efforts seemed to be only 
 rehearsing for the supreme display. By ten o'clock on the morn- 
 ing of Monday, August 27, 1883, the rehearsals were over, and the 
 performance began. An overture, consisting of two or three intro- 
 ductory 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 pre- 
 vious explosions on this earth were completely broken. 
 
 AN EXTRAORDINARY NOISE 
 
 "This supreme effort it was which produced the mightest 
 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 can- 
 not be doubted that the thunders of the great volcano attracted the 
 
368 TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 
 
 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 les- 
 sons on the constitution of our atrriosphere. We previously knew 
 little, or I might say almost nothing, as to the conditions prevail- 
 ing above the height of ten miles overhead. It was Krakatoa which 
 firsk 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 pro- 
 digious quantities of dust. Hundreds of cubic miles of air were 
 thus deprived of that invisibility which they had hitherto main- 
 tained. 
 
 " With eyes full of astonishment men watched those vast vol- 
 umes 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 ape 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 
 
TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 369 
 
 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 unintermit- 
 tent 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 Kra- 
 katoa could be all recovered and swept into one vast heap. Imagine 
 24 
 
370 TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 
 
 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 Kra- 
 katoa 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 18 15, 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 situa- 
 tion 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 ap- 
 peared 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 -writh less rapidity. Theif fifst appearance in Aus- 
 tralia was on September 15th, and at the Cape of Good Hope on 
 
TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 371 
 
 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 1 83 1. 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 183 1. 
 The red sunsets of 1883 were remarkable for their long per- 
 sistence. They were observed in the autumn of 1884 with almost 
 
J72 TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 
 
 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 occa- 
 sionally 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 sun- 
 set. 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 
 
TERRIBLE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA 373 
 
 not alone for their intensity and beauty but for their extended dura- 
 tion, the influence of this remarkable volcanic outbreak being vis- 
 ible 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 vol- 
 canoes 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 pre- 
 pared for civilized lands this grand spectacular effect of Nature s 
 doings. 
 
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CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Mount Pelee and its Harvest of Death. 
 
 ST. PIERRE, the principal city of the French island of Mar- 
 tinique, 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 to- 
 wards the mountains. As seen from the bay, its appearance is pic- 
 turesque 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 practi- 
 cally 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) 
 
 375 
 
376 MONT PELEE AND ITS HAR VEST OF DEATH 
 
 tranquil old hill, would ever spurt forth fire and death. This was 
 entirely unlocked 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 slum- 
 bering at its base. 
 
 A PEACEFUL SCENE 
 
 There were no rooky 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 tour- 
 ists ascended to the summit and looked with pleasure at the beauti- 
 ful 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 protec- 
 tor — 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 snioking 
 

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MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 377 
 
 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 proprie- 
 tor. Mr. Guerin's was one of the largest sugar works on the island ; 
 its destruction entailed a heavy loss. The mud which overwhelmed it 
 foUov^ed 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 pre- 
 sence 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 hefe : 
 
 ''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. 
 
378 MOUNT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 " 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. 
 
 INTERIOR OF A HOME IN ST. PIERRE. 
 
 " 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 handker- 
 chiefs over their faces to protect them from the fumes of sulphur. 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 379 
 
 " 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. J. 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 experi- 
 ence 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 Pi'entis, 
 trusted Mont Pelee too long. They perished, with all the inhabi- 
 tants 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 
 
38o MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 scene can be formed. From the various accounts given of the ter- 
 rible 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 steam- 
 ship 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 into the sky. Enormous clouds of black smoke hung over the 
 volcano. 
 
 " When we anchored at St. Pierre I noticed the cable steam- 
 ship 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 warn- 
 ing. The side of the volcano was ripped out, and there was hurled 
 
MONT JPBLEE AND ITS HAR VEST OF DEATH 38t 
 
 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 van- 
 ished 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 Ror- 
 aima 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 out- 
 right. 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. Cap- 
 tain 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 
 
3«2 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 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 light- 
 ning 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 or- 
 dered 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. 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 383 
 
 I tried to make him take a life-preserver. The captain, who was 
 undressed, jumped overboard and hung on to a Hne 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 de- 
 scription. All around on the deck were the dead and dying cov- 
 ered 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. 
 
384 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 " 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 cap- 
 tain. 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 di- 
 rection of Fort de France. Seeing the RoddaTn, 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 frames 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 : 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 2>H 
 
 " 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 cannonad- 
 ing 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." 
 25 
 
386 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 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 experi- 
 enced 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 dis- 
 aster 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 morn- 
 ing, 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 
 •vhat he experienced in the following thrilling language : 
 
MOUNT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 58? 
 
 "St. Lucia, British West Indies, May 1 1. — The steamer lioddam, 
 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 fore- 
 castle 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 v>rho 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. 
 
MOUNT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 3S9 
 
 "One of the most terrifying conditions was that, the atmosphere 
 being charged with ashes, it was totally dark. The sun was com- 
 pletely 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 
 
39° MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 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 hos- 
 pital. 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 miracu- 
 lous. The woodwork of the cabins and bridge and everything in- 
 flammable 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 roar- 
 ing 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 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH yn 
 
 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 Rod dam." 
 
 THE " ETONA " PASSES ST. PIERRE 
 
 The British steamer Etona, of the Norton Line, stopped at 
 St. Lucia to coal on May loth. Captain Cantell there visited the 
 Roddam and had an interview with Captain Freeman. On the i ith 
 the Etona 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 everyday since we had been within the affected 
 
392 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 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 
 jfight for our lives as the Roddanis 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 Far- 
 rish 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, includ- 
 ing 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. 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 393 
 
 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 day- 
 light 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 STORV 
 
 " 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 dis- 
 tinctly 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 
 
394 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 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 nth, 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 R oddam 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 rig- 
 ging, ropes, tarpaulins, sails, awnings, etc., were charred or burned, 
 and most of the upper stanchions and spars were swept over- 
 board 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 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 395 
 
 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 ob- 
 scured 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 
 
396 MONT PELEE AND ITS HAR VEST OF DEATH 
 
 world had suddenly broken down. It was deafening, and the flash 
 of light that accompanied it was blinding, more so than any light- 
 ning 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 mys- 
 terious 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 know- 
 jng 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 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HAR VEST OF DEATH 397 
 
 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 convul- 
 sion. 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 explo- 
 sion when farther from land. After touching at Barbados, she 
 reached the vicinity of Martinique on May gth, 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 direc- 
 tion of Martinique, there was a very black sky, an unusual thing at 
 
398 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 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 hori- 
 zon toward Martinique, however, did not fade away with the break- 
 ing 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 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 399 
 
 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 for- 
 ward 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 suffo- 
 cating, 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 fiom the 
 
400 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 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 after- 
 noon. 
 
 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. 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 4oi 
 
 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 moun- 
 tain 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 to- 
 ward 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. 
 
 26 
 
40 2 MONT PELEE AND ITS HAR VEST OF DEATH 
 
 " 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 frag- 
 ments 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 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 403 
 
 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 fir<;t 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. 
 
404 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 " 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 lean.ed afterward that she was 
 the Roddam" 
 
MONT PELEB AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 405 
 
 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 indi- 
 cating 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. Sound- 
 ings 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 sub- 
 marine volcano, boiling and hissing continually. 
 
4o6 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 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 Mar- 
 tinique. 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 min- 
 ute 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. 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 407 
 
 " 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, stem-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 
 
4o8 MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 
 
 yelling, ' C est le dernier jour !' (This is the last day.) We were 
 all worried. Even the ofificers 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 morn- 
 ing 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 com- 
 pletely 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 show- 
 ing 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 
 
MONT PELEE AND ITS HARVEST OF DEATH 409 
 
 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 warn- 
 ing 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 uncon- 
 trollable. 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 num- 
 bers 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, com- 
 mander 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 inhabi- 
 tants, 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 foot- 
 hills, 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. 
 
 410 
 
Sr. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 4'i 
 
 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 popula- 
 tion is almost wholly rural, occupying scattered villages which con- 
 sist 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 settle- 
 ment. 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. 
 
412 ST. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 
 
 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 18 1 2 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 APPEARANCF OF THE SOUFRIERE 
 
 Previous to the eruption of 181 2 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 
 
ST. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 413 
 
 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 speci- 
 mens 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, 181 2, 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 l8l2 
 
 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 Missis- 
 sippi Valley to Caracas, Venezuela, producing terrible effects in 
 the latter place. Here, thirty-five days before the volcanic explo- 
 sion, 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 1 718, when lava poured from its crater. A far more violent 
 demonstration of its destructive forces was that above mentioned. On 
 his occasion the eruption lasted for three days, ruining a number of 
 
414 ST. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 
 
 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 pyra- 
 midically 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 
 
ST. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 415 
 
 felt along the whole line of the Northern Cordilleras, working terri- 
 ble 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 e"caped 
 the earthquake were dying of fever and starvation, and seeking 
 among villages and farms places of safety from the renewed earth- 
 quake 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 throw- 
 ing 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. 
 
41 6 ST. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 
 
 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 
 
ST. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 417 
 
 terrified by the darkness, which continued for four hours and a 
 half. Troops were called under arms, the supposition from the con- 
 tinued 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, 181 2, 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 volca- 
 noes 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 ac- 
 count of the visit of the author to St. Vincent, some interesting 
 matter concerning the 1812 eruption and its effect on the moun- 
 tain; 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 1 812, 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 
 
 27 
 
41 8 ST. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 
 
 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 sum- 
 mit 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 fantas- 
 tic 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 m.easure of, the enormous force which had been ex- 
 erted. 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 ist of May the clocks struck six, 
 but the sun did not, as usual in the tropics, answer to the call. 
 
ST. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 419 
 
 The darkness was still intense, and grew more intense as the morn- 
 ing 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 infec- 
 tion. 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, go- 
 ing out, found traces of the sea, and boats and logs washed up some 
 
420 ST. VINCENT AND MONT SOUFRIERE 
 
 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. Some- 
 times 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 
 eaused great alarm, and when the trembling of the earth was very 
 
 421 
 
42 2 SUBMARINE VOLCANOES 
 
 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 DESCRIBEO 
 
 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 11 81, 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. 
 
SUBMARINE VOLCANOES 423 
 
 Previous eruptions in the same part of the sea were recorded as 
 having happened in 1691 and 1720. 
 
 In 1 83 1, a submarine volcanic eruption occurred in the Medi- 
 terranean 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 water- 
 spout, 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 si'.e by the action of the waves. Towards the end of October 
 the island was levelled nearly to the surface of the sea. 
 
424 SUBMARINE VOLCANOES 
 
 Naval officers and foreign ministers alike took an absorbing 
 interest in this new island. The strong national thirst for terri- 
 tory 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 Eng- 
 
 GRAHAM'S ISLAND 
 Uplift of a Submarine Volcano 
 
 lish 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 sub- 
 marine volcanoes. According to one account, indeed, the whole 
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EXCAVATED RUINS OF POMPEII. 
 Vesuvius in the background. 
 
 A STREET IN POMPEII. 
 Showing walls and pavement in the streets as found after exca\ations were made. 
 
SUBMARINE VOLCANOES 425 
 
 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 sum- 
 mit 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 Canimeni, which, however, received A considerable accession 
 to its size by a fresh eruption in a. d. 726. The islet nearest San- 
 torin was raised in 1573, and was named the Little Cammeni ; and 
 in 1 707 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 quan- 
 tities 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 
 
426 SUBMARINE VOLCANOES 
 
 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 earth- 
 quake, 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 " Georcre," in honor of the Kingf of Greece. In another week it 
 joined and became continuous with the Little Cammeni. The deto- 
 nations 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 estab- 
 lished itself above water. The detonations and ejection of incan- 
 descent lava and stones continued at intervals during three weeks. 
 From the crater of the islet George, which attained a height of 1 50 
 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 loth 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. 
 
UBMARINE VOLCANOES 427 
 
 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 Ice- 
 landic 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 char- 
 acter, 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 dro-vsrned, no traces of them were seen after the date mentioned. 
 
428 SUBMARINE VOLCANOES 
 
 In July, 1884, an island again appeared about ten miles off Reykja- 
 nes ; 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 vol- 
 ume 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 lonna Bogoslova (St. John the Theo- 
 logian), by the Russians, Agashagok by the Aleuts, and is now 
 known to the whites of that region as Bogosloff. Mi". 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 
 
SUBMARINE VOLCANOES 4^9 
 
 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 1 5,000 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 Eraser, 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 fol- 
 lowed 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 pro- 
 duced 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. 
 
43° SUBMARINE VOLCANOES 
 
 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° 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, build- 
 ing 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 fine- 
 ness, 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 destruc- 
 tive 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 
 
 431 
 
432 MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 
 
 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 circum- 
 stance 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, ac- 
 companied 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 
 
MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 433 
 
 Iceland there are similar phenomena, the boiHng 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 some- 
 what 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 
 28 
 
434 MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 
 
 noise, and scattered about a volume of black mud in every direc- 
 tion. 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 inter- 
 ruption, throwing up a globular body of mud, and dispersing it with 
 violence through the neighboring plain. The spot where the ebul- 
 lition 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 esti- 
 mated 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 frag- 
 ments of rock. An eruption of mud succeeded. A set of small vol- 
 canoes 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 
 
MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 435 
 
 of the mud volcanoes throw out jets of boiHng 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, some- 
 times 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 impreg- 
 nated, and the substance which they deposit, as they slowly evapo- 
 rate, 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. 
 
436 MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 
 
 Out of the central well springs a jet of boiling water, at inter- 
 vals 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 ex- 
 plosions 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 loo, 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 throw- 
 ing 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 pecu- 
 liarities. 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 
 
MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 437 
 
 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 quar- 
 ter 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 accom- 
 panying 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 vio- 
 lent concussion of the ground brought me and my companions to 
 our feet. We rushed out of the tent in every condition of disha- 
 bille and were in time to see Geyser put forth his full strength. 
 Five strokes underground were the signal, then an overflow, wet- 
 ting 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 
 
438 MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 
 
 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 explo- 
 sion, 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 sub 
 stance. They are also, like them, collected in groups, there being 
 no less than one hundred openings within a space of flat ground a 
 
MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 
 
 439 
 
 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 lit- 
 tle 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 neighbor- 
 hood 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 foun- 
 tains, 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. 
 
 A GEYSER IN ERUPTION, YELLOWSTONE 
 NATIONAL PARK. 
 
440 MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 
 
 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 Yellow- 
 stone 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 settle- 
 ment, 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, ^"^^ 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. 
 

 O u 
 
 U Oh 
 y J S (u . 
 ^~^ o-c Si 
 > _ o 
 i-I 2 .> "^-S 
 
 t— f • r; 4J K^ -t-J 
 .3 " > 
 
 I— 1 +-• rt .S OJ 
 
 p! o ^^^ 
 
 t^ L. =^ ^ 
 
 I— V in H I- O 
 
 I— ' a ™ dJ o 
 
 <* V- O ni :3 
 
 2p- 
 
 u o 
 
 w ^ +-» qj 
 
 ii O Cl! 
 
DEATH IN THE FIRE. 
 Seventeen bodies of persons who were unable to escape the flames. 
 
MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 44i 
 
 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 nth 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 fis- 
 sure are just beginning to get a coating of the silicious geyserite 
 deposited from the water, so that it cannot long have been spout- 
 ing. Again, in the Grotto Geyser — in the Upper Geyser Basin of 
 Fire Hole River — the main or larger crater is hollowed into fantas- 
 tic 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, of 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 
 
442 MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 
 
 the air at intervals of about five hours, and of such volume as to 
 wash away bridges over small streams below — was not, until com- 
 paratively 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 1 5 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 higheV. 
 
 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 occur- 
 ring for several days at a time ; yet when it breaks out it con- 
 tinues 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 
 
MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 443 
 
 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 
 
 THE FAMOUS TERRACES OF YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 
 
 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. 
 
444 MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 
 
 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 
 
MUD VOLCANODS AND GEYSERS 445 
 
 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 dis- 
 charge 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 Gey- 
 ser 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 appar- 
 ently very irregular in its action, though it is just possible that 
 when the Yellowstone geysers have been more consecutively stud- 
 ied, 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, 
 
*446 MUD VOLCANOES AND GEYSERS 
 
 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. 
 
 * There are sio pages in this volume. The sixty-four pages of half tone illustrations 
 shoiild be added to the last folio number (446) indicated, giving a total of 510 pages.