The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-14

| clinging to its face and the tiny mollusks
dead in their shells. The top of this cliff
when it was first thrown up was strewn
| with seaweeds, living seashells and hermit
crabs, which now lie there dried and dead
A hundred feet back slight depression
was filled with sea-water, and in this pool
quantities of white perch, some of them
fully Is inches long, were floating. This
water has now evaporated and soaked
away, but the dried fish still lie on the
sands. Eight pieces of ballast and a con-
siderable length of chain and the top OF
the tiller belonging to the sloop Challenge,
| sunk in the harbor three years ago, 800
feet off shore, were flung up from the bot
tom of the sea at the time of the upheaval,
and were picked up high and dry upon the
shore.
There seems to be no limit to the pecu-
liar developments incidental to this up
heavel, which constantly occur. The latest
discovery is that the entire beach, for
some distance west of the new cliff is
slowly rising, and that ledge of rocks
which slopes downward into the water and
which formerly only showed its head near
the shore at low tide, is now eight or ten
feet above its former level.
A curious and significant fact connected
with these changes is the notable differ
ence now observed in soundings of the har-
Dor. Besides the tall pointed rock which
stands out so prominently at the front OF
the upheaval at the point marked sc" on
the map where the water used to be eleven
feet deep, it is now eighteen, and strong
current with dangerous undertow is here
observable.
At the point marked "B," which has
been the anchorage of San Miguel boats
for several years, the invariable sounding
has hitherto been four fathoms. After the
upheaval it became six fathoms, and the
bed of the harbor at this point, always a
gray sand before, changed to coarse gravel
and bedrock. Between the 18th of March
and the Sd day of April this sounding
changed to five fathoms and the harbor
showed bottom of yellow mud. 1t has
been impossible to have thorough anna
teur survey made of the entire bed of the
harbor, but Captain Daily, passing through
the narrow channel lying between Princes
Island and the harbor's east shore, has
found depth Of thirteen fathoms at
point where his deepest sounding has
hitherto been nine fathoms, and where the
largest figure on the coast survey map is
nine and quarter fathoms.
Should Professor Davidson carry out his
intention of sending coast survey to the
island new and interesting DEVELOPMENTS
may be expected. No one can possibly
travel over San Miguel with one of the
coast survey maps for companion and not
be greatly impressed with startling dis
crepancies between the character of the
coast, as outlined there, and the height of
different elevations, as indicated by the
contour lines, opposed to the testimony OF
the eye. These maps are always draughted
from the most accurate and painstaking
surveys and may be absolutely relied upon.
Captain Waters is convinced that i'm
portant changes in the island had taken
place since the survey made by Hilgard,
Forney and Greenwich in 1888 and pre-
vious to the late upheaval. Whether
these changes are slowly and steadily
progressing or the recent violent upheaval
is but preliminary to the letting loose of
still more powerful subterranean forces is
question that must claim the attention
of scientists everywhere and whose solu-
ton will be regarded with the deepest in
tereSt.
1t is not beyond the bounds of possibility
that at some day not far distant the old
craters of San Miguel may be splitting fire
and the islands territory be extended by
streams of lava flowing down the old fis-
sures to the sea, cementing the detached
reefs and little islets to her shore. Yet it
is quite as probable that these inward con-
vulsions are dying away, that shore and
harbor will adjust themselves to the new
conditions and that for centuries to come
San Miguel. with its mystical history and
>,
form peaceful abiding-place for men and
remain a stanch sentinel at the western
extremity of our channel warding off
harsh winds from the mainland and her
harbor.
Your correspondent is at some slight dis
advantage in being bound by the limita-
lions of truth and fact in the presentation
of this account. Facts are stubborn things
and great handicap to imaginative and
lurid descriptive flights. These occurrences
at San Miguel are unprecedented in the
known history of this coast, a fascinating
study of geological changes, and of the ut
most importance to navigators, yet they
do not in themselves constitute material
for Rider Haggard romance.
In two days the CALL correspondents
observations of the harbor were completed,
and everything was in readiness to return
to the mainland. On the morning of the
30th of March party descended the road
leading to the harbor. One glance at the
spot where the stanch little Liberty had
been left anchored showed an empty ex-
panse of water.
Three-quarters of mile away in the
southeast curve of the harbor there was a
shore strewn with wreckage, and at the
waters edge, YEARLY pounding up and
down upon the beach, was a skeleton frame,
crushed and broken and tangled in a mass
of rigging. The Liberty had gone ashore
IN the night.
Here was dramatic situationl A news
paper correspondent, with an important
story ready for publication, shipwrecked on
an island-happily not desert, forty-fve
miles from the mainland, out of the path of
passing vessels, and whose only connection
with the mainland was the little boat
whose bones were crunching on the beach
below. FLORA HAINEs LoUGHEAD.