1906] Concerning Earthquakes 



desert of ashes about ten days after the great catas- 

 trophe. The basement of the St. Francis Hotel, 

 roofed with baize, immediately became a first-class 

 restaurant, and guests were housed in a temporary 

 wooden structure in the adjacent little park of Union 

 Square. Yet the spirit sometimes fainted. Restora- 

 tion was necessarily slow at the best; to hundreds 

 of men and women past middle life the future looked 

 very drab. 



At the University a dreary waste of ruined walls 

 and ugly heaps of rock and rubbish long confronted 

 us, while over all presided the veritable "dome in air" 

 of the wrecked Library, perched high on iron beams 

 where it had proved, because of its great weight, a 

 swaying inverted pendulum of destruction. Faculty 

 homes had to take their turn with plasterers, brick- 

 layers, and carpenters. During the summer the noted An 

 botanist of Amsterdam, Hugo de Vries, who was 

 taking luncheon at my house, got through a jagged 

 chimney chasm a decidedly unconventional view 

 into the adjoining room! 



I shall now for a time digress on the nature of earth- 

 quakes in general and of our great temblor in par- 

 ticular. 



Two types of disturbances shake or "quake" the Fashions 

 crust of our planet: (a) eruptive earthquakes, explo- ' 

 sions (usually of steam) connected with a volcano, 

 and (b) tectonic earthquakes, breaks in the over- 

 loaded or overstrained surface, having, for the most 

 part, nothing to do with volcanoes. To the last class 

 most earthquakes belong, certainly nearly all that 

 have been felt within the United States. 



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