The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-07-13


reaching up to their shoulders. The small
est child losing its hold, was swept away,
and its mother, springing after 1t, shared
its fate.
Presently the father. trying to fend off
some floating debris that threatened to
strike the children, was carried OH, and
the five orphans alone remained. In an
other family of ten one child of drifted
to a rock and was saved; and in another
family of the same number the father,
having carried baby to hill and found
that none OF the others followed, set down
the baby and ran back, only to perish with
the rest. The story of retired soldier is
worth repeating. His experiences in the
recent war had taught him to appreh bend
the rald1ng OF Japans coasts by hostile
fleet. Thus, when the cannon-like roar of
the advancing waters and the cries of the
people reached him, he threw on his tunic
and ran shoreward, sword in hand.
Next morning his corpse was found,
mucn battered, but not separated from the
sword. Strange to say, fishermen plying
their trade four miles from the coast did
not observe anything TO indicate the occur
renee OF serious phenomenon, though
party only three miles out, in the same
district, encountered heavy breakers roll
ing from the north. By and by one of the
boats observed what seemed to be large
hsh floating on the water, but on rowing
nearer they saw that it was child lying
on mat. In the same manner three other
children were picked up by a fisherman,
who, to his establishment, found that one
OF them was his own son. 1neXpresslblv
sad was the case of some fishermen who,
returning shoreward in the early morning
after the catastrophe, received their first
notice of what had occurred by finding the
corpses OF their wives and children float
ing In the water.
At points closer to the center of the dis
RI no hnx fhoN i'm IN 10
water was perceptible at a much greater
distance from shore. Thus, a party OF
fishermen who were out looking for funny
off the ShiZukawa coast, between and 8
P. NJ, heard, as they supposed, the boom
ing Of big guns in the distance. Soon
afterward, looking seward, they saw the
surface of the ocean heave in huge masses,
which, after rising to mountainous
heights, broke in the middle and swept
northward and southwark, ultimately
striking the shore with deafening crash.
the waves passed under the boats without
swapping them, but the water in the
vicinity of the shore remained so rough
throughout the night that the fishermen
could not make land until morning, when
they found their wives and children dead
and their homes in ruins.
The scene presented by the devastated
districts is shocking. Along the beach the
tim bers of wrecked houses lie piled upon
that sheltered happy families a few days
ago in quiet country hooks are strewn
pell-meH on the sands. Here, houses that
have had their walls torn away stand,
mere skeletons; there, others have been
wrenched from their foundations, tele-
scoped into each other, tumbled upside
down or heaped together in shattered con-
fusion. In one instance the immense
mass of water, rushing up narrow inlet,
tore from their foundations the houses on
either side and drove them with terrific
force into the highland ahead, where they
now lie crushed into a confused mass of
timber, thatch and wreckage of all kinds,
| the grave of many mangled body.
Horses and cattle lie wedged among the
rocks, and men and women wander about,
/ stupehed and helpless, looking as though
their minds and energies had been
numbed. Numerous corpses are still bur-
led under the debris of ruined buildings,
/ or under heaps of mud and sand thrown
/ up by the waves, and often when body
is disinterred. no friend or relative re-
mains alive to identify it. The Govern
ment is, of course, adopting vigorous
measures of relief and liberal subscrip-
! tons are pouring into tae newspaper
offices, both vernacular and foreign, for
when calamity overtakes Japanese, the
| benevolence of the foreign community is
invaria ply large-handed.
! AS 20 the cause of the disaster, opinions
are still divided. At first it was supposed
| that the disturbance had its origin in a
| sudden collapse of the sides of the subter-
ranean crater known as the Tuscarora
deep. Commander (now Rear Admiral)
! Belknap of the United States navy,
on deep-sea-survey cruise in the United
! States frigate Tuscarora, TWENTY-FIVE years
ago, found a trough-like depression off
the northeast coast of Japan, in
north latitude A deg. so min.
and east longitude 152 deg. 80 min. The
| heavy sounding lead took about one and
half hours to reach bottom and ndicated
depth OF 1855 fathoms, or over 81 stat
ute miles. But it being tolerably evident
that the center of the recent disturbance
Law between the 39th and 10th parallels OF
| latitude and thel42d and 143d meridians of
longitude, the Tuscarora Deep seems to be
excluded from the problem.
On the other hand, considering that the
advent OF the great wave was imm ediately
| preceded by earthquake shocks whose
vertical character precludes the hYpothe-
sis that they were due to the studendous
rolling of the wave itself, the most reason
able conclusion appears to be that SUBJ
marine volcanic eruption took place some
where within the area of ocean bounded
by the 142d and 143d meridians of east
longitude and the 39th and 10th parallels
of north latitude. The Baudai-san phe-
nomenon of 1886 illustrates very WILDLY
| the KING OF disturbance that may at anV
moment occur among the ranges OF vol
caaic mountains on the oceans bed, AT
Bandai-san millions of tons OF earth and
rocks were hurled in a given direction
with force that carried an enormous wave
of solid material over a distance of many
miles at railway speed.
Anything of that kind happening at The
bottom of the sea would evidently pro
duce surface effects precisely such as those
experienced on the 18th of June. That
the water had been thrown up from great
depths to swell the bulk of the colossal bill.
low is proved by the fact that deep-sea
shell-fish were found in the hills visited by
the wave. Moreover, at one place. lyine
beyond the destructive range of the wave
the fishermen next morning found Their
seines floating on the surface upside down
They bad evidently been cast up by some
submarine commotion. 1t may be added
here that since the catastrophe the fish
seem TO have deserted the upper waters
A few can be caught now only by usine
the deepest seines, the great bulk hayinS
apparently gone down to inaccessible
depths.
In every previous instance, however. the
marine disturbance is spoken of as thf