EAETHQUAKES ON THE PACIFIC COAST 217 



slight one, was felt in the canyon about 10 o'clock Sunday night. 

 There were no shocks so severe as the first one, and they grad- 

 ually lessened in force and frequency. 



As far as can be learned the area of the temblors was not con- 

 fined entirely to the San Fernando range, but dipped across the 

 big Newhall ranch, past Saugus and over into the Castac and 

 Piru mountains, north of Newhall. Strange as it may seem, 

 although Newhall is only 8 miles from the Pico Canyon, where 

 the shakes were more continuous than elsewhere, the people in 

 that town did not feel many of them. 



The greatest disturbance was in and around the oil wells of the 

 Pacific coast and San Francisco companies at the head of Pico 

 Canyon. 



]Mintryville is a little town with a schoolhouse, and is the residence 

 of the superintendent of the oil companies. Scattered about are 

 pretty little cottages, the homes of employes. 



One who has not visited the peculiarly formed canyon can hardly 

 have a clear conception of the consternation with which the 

 earthquakes were received by the 130 people who live in this 

 vicinity. Temblors that would, as these did, tilt up great oil 

 tanks full of oil, detach immense bowlders from the mouataiu 

 sides weighing tons, and cause big surface fissures in the ground 

 in various places, are not calculated to make people rest well at 

 night, and when these disturbances continue at irregular inter- 

 vals for five days it is a wonder that the women and children in 

 the canyon bore the ordeal as bravely as they did. 



Mr. Mintry gave his recollection of the big earthquake of Tuesdaj' 

 (April 4) : 



" It was a few minutes after 12 o'clock. The men had nearly all 

 left the derricks. Suddenly there was a peculiar swaying of the 

 ground and an explosion which I can hardly describe. It was 

 heavier than any blast I ever heard. I was on horseback, 

 and the horse was frightened very badly. At first I thought of a 

 boiler, but looking along the San Fernando range, as far as I 

 could see east and west, there was a blinding cloud of dust. It 

 rose directly up from the top of the range and was thick. All 

 around me the dust rose from the hills in the near vicinity aud 

 earth and bowlders came tumbling down. The shock lasted be- 

 tween ten and fifteen seconds. I looked across the valley and 

 saw the same thing in the Castac Hills. That shock was the 

 worst and it was accompanied by a rumbling sound. The shocks 

 since that time have been smaller ones. They have not affected 

 the flow of oil. There was not the slightest disturbance in any 

 of the wells. I have been here for nineteen years as superinten- 

 dent of the oil wells, and this is the first time there has been an 

 earthquake in this vicinity." 



