Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-05-06

tant brick blocks OF commercial buildings
along Broadway. Oakland. The dam on the
west side of Lake Merritt. separating OAK
land and East Oakland. has slumped.
Credible Witnesses have told me that
Market street and the brick sections OF
Mission. Howard. Folsome and other down
town streets were impossible because OF
crushed buildings and earthquake wreck
age before the fire broke out.
Some Interior Effects.
have been in half a dozen dwellings.
which though strained weakened and other
wise injured survived the shock and escaped
the fire. Some OF the rooms In these
houses had not been Strengthened up, bu.
were still IN earthquake disorder. The
parlor of one looked like this: An up
right piano was thrown six feet from the
wall against which 1t stood. thrown face
down and the case split: heavy mirror
was thrown to the floor and shattered into
tiny pieces; two chairs were overturned.
pictures were knocked from the walls.
vases that stood on the floor were keeled
over and broken, and every ornament swept
from the mantei. In another room sec
uonal book case filled with books was
heaped in the middle of the ROOM another
the books strewn about the floor and every
piece of bric-a-brac was thrown TO the
floor. In the dining room every article of
the china closet was Jared out and broken
every house in San Francisco and the
country roundabout.
The Street Cars.
Local newspapers have been making a
feature that the street cars have resumed
operations This is misleading Several
overhead trolley cars are running north and
south along Fillmore street, down 10th to
Mission, to 9Th and then to Market Eight
days after the earthquake the overhead
wires were restored and the debris cleared
sufficiently for these cars TO get through.
There was no fire along Fillmore street, and
18th and Mission from 10th to 9th was a
frame region, where the debris in the street
was not heavy. Ninety-nine per cent of
San Francisco street car traffic was carried
by the cable lines. and not one of these
lines is i'll operation, and there is little pros
pect that they will soon be operated. The
conduits and slots are twisted. the power
stations are junk and nearly all the rolling
stock lost. 1t Is impossible to tell the NUM-
Der of cars that were burned in the streets
Every cable car that running when the
earth heaved and rocked stopped. They
could not be moved and those in the fire
zone went up in smoke. The trucks. wheels
and brake rods may be seen throughout the
cinder district. At one point on California
street there is string of ten car skeletons
end to end. On Castro street there are
cable cars still stuck where they stopped
on the earthquake morning, though the fire
did not reach them.
Bad Construction Revealed.
The earthquake has revealed some fiimsy
construction in the shock city 1t has
shown that some houses and the foundation
of many houses were built like this: Sills
would be laid on a small brick foundation,
the studding put up as for frame house,
rough Notwithstanding nailed on and the
whole thing faced with Il single thickness
of brick, the thin brick wall being run up
against the Notwithstanding without being
pinned to it in any way. This construction
gave the appearance of n brick house, but
these bricks were easily shaken down. Many
houses appeared to rest stone founda-
ton that ran up six or eight feet from the
ground A wire mesh would be stretched
over the studding and this would be coated
with mortar cement. On the outside of
this cement would be laid and pasted to
resemble stone. This stone" foundation
would be perhaps half an inch thick. Above
the stone" the Notwithstanding would be
put and the frame superstructure would ap-
pear to rest on heavy stone walls. All these
stone walls" were ripped up and exposed.
1t must not be thought that because of this
unstable construction San Francisco was
generally of fimsy build. The reverse is
true Persons who have not visited the
place in a decade cannot understand the
MAGNITUDE of the new brick, stone and steel
construction in the city. j. H. S.