The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1906. THE FATE OF SAN FRANCISCO.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 94, 20 April 1906, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1906. THE FATE OF SAN FRANCISCO.

For-Ok -emnse that tacts- aeststmtue, Fer th« wrong that needs resistemee. For the futttre in the diataKoe, And the good that we can do.

The world has long been familiar with the devastation that can be wrought by earthquakes; but-never in modern times has a. more overwhelming disaster befallen any great city than the calamity which has overtaken San Francisco. In the space of a few brief minutes the greater part of a crowded and prosperous city has been shaken to the earth. and devouring flames are completing the work of ruin left unfinished by the colossal forces of destruction that Nature has let loose. The information that has reached us since yesterday is of necessity still fragmentary and incomplete. But we know enough now to be sure that the fate of San Francisco is even more tragic and awe-inspiring than the first dreadful rumours led us to anticipate. Our cables tell us that the whole of the business portion of the city is in ruins, that nearly all the large and imposing buildings have been dashed to the ground, that the damage done by fire alone is already computed at £20,000,000, and that the loss of life, though known to be heavy, cannot yet be correctly estimated. There is always something portentous and terrible in such a visitation, however small the amount of injury that it causes. But we may search tho records of modern history in vain lor any parallel to the appalling destruction which has overthrown the youngest and in many ways the most interesting and the most beautiful of America's great cities.

The general aspect that the city presented from the sea is familiar, through prints and descriptions, to many people ■who have never passed through the Golden Gate. "As if it were fearful of being hid, it is set upon not one but a score of hills overlooking land and sea. As you near it by way of Oakland Ferry it appears to be built in terraced rows rising steeply from the water front." Tljere are few cities of the same size that offer so wide an expanse at one comprehensive view. "Standing on a stretch of billowy sandhills, it every-

where exposes a panorama of roofs." And though in the early days the buildings were low and flat, out of reverence to tfyfc traditions of earthquake, in 'recent years many huge ".sky-scrapers," like the "Call" building and the"Chronicle office, have sprung up close together in the commercial centre of the city. Mar-ket-street, the great central thorough-

fare, through all its miles of length, vies with the greatest of British cities in its commercial activity and crowded strenuous life. Everywhere there is "hustle," ''push," and all the essential features that are most characteristic of American existence to-day. A city of many varied social aspects; a city exhibiting "innumerable phases of active commerce and the contrasting life of races representing nearly every nation of fhe world"; a city, too, in which wealth and luxury abound, and tho pursuit of pleasure in different forms and degrees fills a vast space in the lives of the people; and in a moment this great metropolis of the West is levelled with the earth and piled upon itself in indistinguishable ruin. Not even the Hebrew prophet moralising over the vanity of human ambition and the inevitable passing away of human greatness and power, could find a better theme for his lamentations in Tyre and Babylon than he might find in Market-street or Van Ness Avenue to-day.

It is still perhaps idle to speculate on the precise reasons for the completeness of this terrible cataclysm. But one or two points brought out in our cables may be not without interest to our readers. One message informs us that the greatest loss of life has occurred in the "tenement area," the poorer residential quarter, along the water front. This part of the city area is practically all "made ground" or reclaimed land, like our -own city foreshore. Such a foundation is naturally unsteady, and the shock which the super-imposed structures had to sustain would be far greater than the strength of. wooden buildings on such a basis could stand. As to the "sky-scrapers," such as the "Call" f building, 20 storeys or more in height, it has been hitherto contended by enIgineers and architects that the elasticity of their steel and iron frames ! would enable them to withstand any ordinary earth tremor. However, the "Call" Building is said to have been crushed to pieces like an eggshell, and we must conclude either that the "skyscraper" is a very unsafe building on the Pacific Coast, or that this shock was on e of altogether unprecedented and incalculable violence.

This last suggestion leads naturally to the consideration of the cause oi this awful catastrophe. On this point our cables indicate a very interesting theory put forward by the most eminent of living seismologists, Professor J. Milne. The evidence so far available has led Professor Milne to the opinion that this Titanic earth convulsion niay have been due to a slight deviation of the earth's ass from its normal direction. The

strain caused by the automatic readjustment, under the control of the vast dynamic forces involved, might easily- result in a slight crumpling of the earth's I crust sufficient to do fax more damage that San Frandsco has sustained. The Washington seismographs record a movement of tbe earth's surface to the extent of half an inch, and this migh£ be quite enough to lay a city in rains.

-According to the most recent authorities the moat destructive earthquakes, on record have been caused not by the direct explosive force of volcanic agencies, but by the dislocation or displacement of subterranean strata. It is significant that one of the most terrible earthquakes which American observers have noted occurred in 1887 in the Western States not very far from California itself, when portioa of North Mexico tos shaken by a great earth tremor which produced a "fault" or small landslip over 40 miles long, and in some places from 9ft to lift in height. The terrible Mino earthquake which visited Japan in 1891, was accompanied also by a break in the earth's crust and underlying strata which extended practically right across Japan. This particular earthquake caused 25,000 casualties, and destroyed 250,000 houses. The i most extensive earthquake yet investigated by science which devastated N.E. .Bengal and Western Assam in 1897, -was also marked by a huge fault or dislocation of strata. It is extremely piobable from the character of the surrounding country, the violence of the 1 shock, and the accompaniment of a tidal wave that this San Francisco catastrophe is due to some displacement of the earth's crust or the underlying rock layers due to "tectonic" or geological rather than volcanic causes; and in that case the terrible amount of destruction caused would be simply accounted for by the subsidence or movement of the area on which the doomed city has been built. But whatever be the precise explanation, it can only strengthen the sense of impotent awe with wliich frail humanity is constrained to regard the operation of Nature's forces, and to dure as b&st it may disasters which are neither to be guarded against nor foreseen.