134 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



come within the domain of salubrity, for many persons in the 

 Eastern States object to California as a place of residence, be- 

 cause of the danger from those convulsions of the globe. 

 There is a possibility of death from them, but the possibility 

 is so remote that it does not disturb the enjoyment of life here. 

 In twenty years, about forty deaths have been recorded in the 

 State, and not one of these occurred in a strong house. The 

 majority of the victims lived in walls of adobe, or dried mud, 

 ready to topple over at a slight shock. In San Francisco, 

 several thousand brick houses, many of them three, and some 

 four stories high, have stood for fifteen years, or more, not only 

 without coming down, but without showing any mark of in- 

 jury, beyond slight cracks in the plastering. The deaths from 

 earthquakes have been about two annually, or at the rate of 

 one in a quarter of a million ; while, in the Eastern States, 

 lightning, sunstroke, and hurricanes, which kill nobody here, 

 have each slain three times as many relatively. 



Most of the earthquakes of California are confined to very 

 small districts. Thus, not more than one in ten of those felt 

 in San Francisco is perceived in Sacramento. Many shocks 

 are slight, and observed only by a few people. The question 

 is frequently asked in San Francisco, " Was there an earth- 

 quake last night?" Somebody felt a slight tremor in the 

 house ; perhaps it was caused by an earthquake perhaps by a 

 heavy wagon passing through the street. Tourists occasionally 

 express great disappointment because a shock came, and was 

 so slight that they did not feel it, either because they were 

 asleep, or were walking. Many persons in the street, when 

 the shock of October 21st, 1868, occurred, did not feel it, and 

 when they saw the people rushing out of the houses, wondered 

 at the excitement. 



We frequently hear San Franciscans say, this is " earthquake 

 weather," when it is sultry, but there has been nothing in ex- 

 perience to justify such language. No peculiar condition of 

 the temperature of the sky, or of the barometer, has uniform- 



