The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-04-19

its foundation in rock, and stood ex
actly at the point where the hard red
sandstone ledge that forms the geo
logical backbone of the peninsula OF
Yerba Buena comes sharply to the sur.
face of the ground. In the erection of
this immense structure, which Claus
Spreckels designed as a monument to
himself to stand for all time, an ex-
cavation was made in the rock amt fif-
ty feet of crossed railroad iron was
cemented in one solid mass, making a
rigid stratum to which the steel frame
work of the building was bolted.
From the point at the apex of the
rock ledge where the building stands,
the rock falls away toward the BAY at
an angie of about thirty degrees, and
the bay at the foot of Market street
IS very deep. In fact, the under ledge
probably runs down as sharply to the
southwark from the Call building, as
the descent of Third street toward
Townsend and the low lying Mission
Bay region is also steep.
Now, while the incline of the rock
under the surface of Market street is
at an angle of thirty degrees, the grade
of Market street itself to the ferries
is probably not more than three per
cent
What has happened in San Francisco
"a part of what has happened,-is very
probably this: There was a sharp and
somewhat long continued shock of
in the early morning of yes
terday There may have been and
probably We're several hard shocks. The
whole fiIled-in section of San Francisco
below the old water line was shaken,
of course, and the line of cleavage may
have been right at the apex of the
ridge upon whose apex the Cali build
ing stood. If the rock had been
split apart there, that would account
for the collapse of the Call building,
otherwise from the manner of its con-
struction inexplicable.
Followed upon the earthquake shock
and the splitting of the rock ledge a
landslide, carrying every |
Thing below the cleavage line down to-
ward the ferry. From the fact that the |
Palace hotel and other structures be- |
5ween the Call building and the Ferry |
we're burned, this slipping might have |
been slow, after the first shock, but |
even at that tremendous amount of |
natter would slide into the bay. carry
ng with it the wharves, the shipping, |
below Montgomery street,
bodily.
This would explain the wreckage
which is said to have befaIlen all that
portion of the city-in effect the entire
Wholesale business section. This ire
earth slip, sliding into the bay,
would raise the water, pushing a great
wave ahead of it upon the low Oakland
nd Alameda shores and, because little
f it could find its way out at the Col
en Gate, submerging the lower por-
ion of every one of the towns about
he bay, extending from Alviso on the
outh to the marshes of Suisun Bay on
he north
The appalling nature of the calamity
an thus be grasped. San Francisco
Bay, swept by local tidal wave, would
Use within its own limits precisely as
he water in bath tub would. if the
ub were to be suddenly filed with
arth.
Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, Emery
lille, San Pablo, San Quentin, Tiburon,
ausalita, Port Costa, Martinez, posi-
ly even San Jose and certainly the
oW-lying points along the inner side
the peninsula of Yerba Buena. San