EAKTHQIJAKES ON THE PACIFIC COAST 19'7 



put up the tents. By the light of to-morrow's sun the place will 

 look like an encampment in a ruined city. 



" The first object I was shown was the calaboose or jail. There was 

 one man in it, a tramp, when the shock came. He escaped with 

 his life and they let him go on general principles. The jail would 

 be improved in appearance if it had a roof and walls. In the 

 Cradwick building there were three women and a man when the 

 shock came. The women escaped by the front door in the nick 

 of time. The man was the poor fellow sent with a crushed 

 skull to Woodland. The building itself is a heap of bricks, un- 

 symmetrically piled in the center of the lot on which it stood. 

 Morrison's hardware store, next door, has the walls standing, 

 and that is all. By a side alley Main Street was reached, and 

 here the havoc wrought could only be compared to the aspect 

 of Paris during the last days of the Commune. The most furious 

 bombardment could have done no more. Substantially built 

 structures were demolished even more completely than those of 

 lighter order. Some of the granite blocks lying on the sidewalk 

 measured two feet by one, and as for safes and similar heavy 

 objects, they had been tossed about like chaff. 



" The encampment was visited. Some of the men were laughing 

 for fear they should cry, and all of them preferred to sleep on 

 the ground with a friendly blanket between them and mother 

 earth, lest they should fall out of bed. Sixteen women were 

 found sleeping in one tent. 



" It is quite clear that the focus of to-day's disturbance has been 

 shifted to the north, and has been located near Winters. Elmira 

 and Vacaville got off lightly. The direction of the shocks has 

 also perceptibly changed. It must have been a fearful shock. 

 The sand bars in Putah Creek near Winters opened and from the 

 fissures the water spurted high up on the banks. In some 

 places the creek became dry, in others it changed to a torrent. 

 The banks caved in some places and almost dammed the stream. 

 Some of the farmers say that the earthquake was foretold by the 

 action of the fowls and animals. Horses were restive and neigh- 

 ing, chickens fluttered all about, and dogs whined anxiously for 

 some minutes before the earth trembled. It was reported that 

 several boiling springs had burst from the foothills on the north 

 and west and were flowing steadily. Frame houses did not suffer 

 much in Winters. What was in them was badly shaken up, but 

 the buildings held together as a rule. 



" On the Hotel Devilbiss a brick chimney was broken off close to the 

 roof by the shock of the 19th and twisted halfway around. It 

 was not broken more than that, and a couple of men easily 

 twisted it back again and mortared it well. Yesterday's shock 

 simply resolved that chimney into loose bricks and powdered 

 mortar. 



