19063 Further Devastation 



to be expected; it had from the first been the source 

 of much trouble because the rock through which it 

 passes has been crushed again and again by earth- 

 quakes. At Merrill's fruit ranch on the hill above, the 

 crack ripped up through the orchard, shifting the 

 rows of trees from six to eight feet and utterly ruining 

 the large, hospitable farmhouse, which stood over 

 the track and was split in two. 



Farther on, at Skylands, Fern Gulch was filled with 

 wreckage, redwood trees four and five feet through, a 

 century or two old, having been snapped off like 

 whiplashes. Hinckley's Gulch, a narrow gorge a 

 hundred feet deep, was filled by landslips thrown 

 down from either side, completely burying the Loma 

 Prieta sawmill and nine mill hands to the depth of Buried 

 125 feet. Over the havoc towered intact a redwood men 

 tree one hundred feet high. During the clearing 

 away of the debris, the bodies of the foreman 

 and his Siberian mastiff were found smothered in 

 mud but erect and obviously caught in the act of 

 running. 



Beyond the wooded hills the rift tore through the 

 cement railway bridge over the Pajaro River, shifting 

 a pier about eighteen inches (only) to the northwest. 

 Here the surface line became obscure, ceasing two End of 

 miles southwest of San Juan, at which place occurred 

 the partial wreck of the venerable Mission San Juan 

 Bautista. Shortly afterward I accepted with pleasure 

 an invitation from Catholics resident in that region 

 to speak in the old garden for the benefit of a restora- 

 tion fund, my topic being the story of the Franciscan 

 Missions. The following year, under the head of 

 "The California Earthquake of 1906," I edited a 

 volume containing my own account and that of 



C i8S 3 



