The Days of a Man 1:1906 



Fatal coin- — the tragedy and terror of those hours. By a 

 cidences disastrous coincidence the great water main serving 

 the city runs for twelve miles along the depression of 

 the seismic rift of 1868. Furthermore, despite an 

 inexhaustible supply of salt water immediately at 

 hand, no pumping plant had ever been established, 

 and old wells, having served their time, were for the 

 most part filled up or forgotten. The only resource, 

 therefore, lay in the blowing up of houses by dynamite 

 to check the spread of flame; but the stock soon giving 

 out, the authorities were helpless. The conflagration 

 thus destroyed practically all of the business section 

 and most of the residence district, including nearly 

 every building from the water front to Van Ness 

 Avenue, a double street lined with expensive homes. 

 Indeed, many of the familiar thoroughfares were so 

 overpiled with debris as to be scarcely traceable. 



Those who could make their way to Oakland, 

 Berkeley, and other suburban towns found refuge 

 there, yet for some days a large part of the population 

 encamped in the parks or scattered along the line 

 down the Peninsula. But the weather being good, 

 food abundant and inexpensive, and a kindly spirit 

 prevalent, remediable distress was reduced to a 

 Living on minimum. Indeed, for a time the community got 

 faith along without money, as every bank had been burned 



and the vaults were too hot to be opened. The state 

 officials accordingly closed all banks in California, 

 and transactions had to be made on trust. Letters 

 went unstamped through the mails, railways trans- 

 ported hundreds of people for nothing. To relieve 

 local stress, I telegraphed to Swain to send me by 

 express five hundred one-dollar bills, which came like 

 rain on a thirsty land. 



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