The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-07
A WRECKED MOUNTAIN.
The Effect of an Earthquake Upon San
 Jacinto, California.

1 Jacinto, California.
 1 A remarkable natural phenomenon has followed the recent series of earth
 quakes that shook the southern end of
 California. One of the giant spur of
 San Jacinto Peak has moved it's millions
 of tons of earth and rock into the valley | beneath. There it lies, eleven miles southeast of San Jacinto, a tumbling
 mass of earth, six hundred acres of 1 trees and rocks, with immense crevasses 1 and cracks running zigzag in all direc- 1 tions. There are damned peaks of sand stone where hills were torn asunder
 there are slanting precipices where the mountains parted company. In other , places are great funnel shaped holes where the soil was sucked into the in-
 teror of the earth, and spots scarce six
 feet across run through with crevasses whose depth the eye cannot fathon.
 The news of this great mountain slide was slow in reaching town. The peak was visited on Christmas day by Grant l. Taggart, forest supervisor and for merly clerk of the supreme court of California, together with Forest Ranger Rouse. Their horses were tied at an el-
 ovation of four thousand feet to man.
 zanita tree, and Rouse proceeded to
 blaze a trail across this identical six
 hundred acres to be utilized in case of
 mountain fires.
 The terrific seismic shock that levelled
 San Jacinto's brick buildings occurred
 at 425 on Christmas morning. At 10 o'clock these forest officers saw the peak
 trembling and vibrating constantly with
 internal runbling, but as temblors had been constantly recurring since morning
 the men were not alarmed They left
 that particular spur after an hours
 work. MT. Rouse lives about two miles
 below the mountain, and although shocks were as frequent as six each day,
 he did not remember any except one
 which occurred days later at 1:31 p. m.
 At that time a great booming as of blasting came from the spur above him and every dish in his house was shaken from the cupboard shelves. He is of the opinion that this was the date of the collapse, for clouds of dust could be seen issuing from the direction of the noun tain. The great Christmas earthquake must have caused the roof of the sub- terranean cavern to split and the con- stantly recurring temblors caused the mountain peak to slip into the cavity.
 MT. Rouse did not revisit the spur until few days ago, and when he sought his manzanita tree at the head of the trail to tie his horse to he found that the tree Jay uprooted fifty feet be- low, over the edge of a wide crevasse, and the gently sloping mountainsides lay in jumbed mass of roots, rocks and deep Assures. The southeastern edge, a half mile away, stood intact but a long slant of blue shae, smooth as glass at an agle of 40 degrees. show ed just where the great mass of earth had moved into the suddenly opened abyss to the northwest.
 The temblors still occur weekly, and one occurred last night. On Sunday 1, everybody in this city drove to the foot of the spur, and on horseback completed | the steep ascent on a narrow, precipi- tous bridle path to the scene, It Is like 1 climbing the Alps.
 Once there, however the view that Is obtained well repays the visitor for his weary trip. What was once a gentle in- cline, running from ridge to a small l valley, is now cavern, separating the | ridge from the valley. There are crev- ices every few feet in the earth, some as l wide as six feet and ever twenty feet | deep Bushes and small trees have been torn up by the roots and hurled down for many feet. In one place an oak tree about fifteen feet high and three feet in | diameter was moved distance of fifty | feet The soil Is so broken and cracked f that every few steps one is apt to sink up to the knees. For three quarters of a mile all that can be seen is a mass of | upturned bushes and broken banks 1 What were once the lowest basins are now the highest.
 But the most remarkable thing to be seen on the tract Is the half mile wide stratum of ejected material The com position is black and of very fine grain. It shines, and is even glassy. Beneath the surface of this crystalline rock mica Is found This Is no doubt igneous rock A short time ago 1t was surely molten, l for beneath the hardening crust it is , soft enough to be moulded into any ] shape with the hands. Two or three feet | below this Is an intruded rock, coarser grained and probably granite. This con-