15 



rushed away to the gold iiflds. Thi'sc ships accumulated to such an extent that a 

 chronicle of the time records that in 184") "there were between three and four hundred 

 square rigged vessels lying in the Bay, unable to leave on account of want of hands." 

 A majority of these, and of those to follow in the next few years, never did leave port. 

 Some of the abandoned hulks were purchased and permanently located to serve as 

 wharves and buildings for general purposes. Three of them supplied the new city 

 witli standard municipal facilities: the "Fluphemia" became a prison, the "Panama" 

 a church, and the "Apollo" a saloon. In a short time the shi[)s numbered "eight to 

 niiu' hundred — like an immense forest stripped of its foliage." 



With the great mass of unprotected timlier in the harbor, all conditions were 

 present to promote the propagation and spread of borer infestation. That marine 

 borers were very active at the time is shown by the following quotation from an 

 observer's record of the period: "When I landed again in San P'rancisco in 1857, I 

 was astonished at the second great change which time and circumstances had wrought 

 . . . Some of the wharves had broken down; (Others were in a fair way to share the 

 same fate, being veritable man-traps . . . Many of the houses erected on the wharves 



Jiai*W!M<{««'at.J|j;;««*li.J^3li-^.^ 



Fig. 5. "\'frba BuL-na Cove in 18-19. 



were unoccupied and tottering on their insecure foundations of piles half demolished 

 by the timber-worm." Thus many of the structures built subsequent to 1849 had be- 

 come abandoned menaces by 1857 ; it is recorded that those which continued serviceable 

 were only maintained by continuous renewal of piling. 



While the borers present at the time have been variously referred to as "timber- 

 worms," "shipworms" and "teredo," it is likely that Bankia was the first form present. 

 This borer is of the family Teredinidae along with the teredo, and although much 

 larger, has the same general appearance and method of attack as the true Teredo, 

 which has led to confusion with the latter. There is no definite biological evidence, 

 however, that the Teredo was present until about 1913. (See p. 206.) If Limnoria 

 had existed at the time it is likely that some of the many w-riters of that period would 

 have observed and recorded the easily visible manner of its attack on piling, whereby 

 the surface wood is eaten away near low tide level, reducing the pile diameter until 

 it is cut through. Absence of comment by early writers on "teredo" attack, until 

 the whar\es began to collapse, is easily explained by the fact that the borers of this 

 family work inside the pile, without visibly affecting the outer surface. The Board 

 of State Harbor Commissioners reported in 1869: "The piles in this harbor are at- 



