May 14, 1908] 



NA TURE 



27 



THE CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE. 



Tlic California Earthquake of 1906. Edited by David 

 Starr Jordan. Pp. XV4-371; illustrated. (San 

 Francisco : A. M. Robertson, 1907.) 



THIS is a collection of nine well-written essays, 

 which, as might be expected, more or less over- 

 lap in their subject-matter. The first of these, by the 

 editor, deals almost entirely with the Great Fault or 

 Rift, the sudden yielding along which caused the 

 earthquake. The strongest motion was felt where the 

 fault enters the sea, near to which hotels and houses 

 were thrown into the water. A fact that there was 

 some disturbance in the sea suggests that a portion 

 of the origin was beneath the same. At one place 

 a train was overturned. We read that persons in an 

 undisturbed Wistrict looking towards one that was 

 shaken may have seen rows of trees and rows of 

 bushes filing past them. The earthquake, we 

 learn, was not connected with eruptions in the 

 Aleutian Islands. The author gives us lists of Cali- 

 fornian earthquakes, the more destructive of which 

 appijrently have had a period of thirty to forty years. 

 He is inclined to ridicule electrical theories as a cause 

 of earthquakes, and in referring to the destruction 

 which took place in town and country, he (|uotes 

 from the book of Isaiah, which declares that " men 

 shall bf plagued by their own inventions." 



The second essay is by Prof. Branner. It deals 

 with the geology of the earthquake. He chieflv 

 describes the Great Fault, which spirt both trees and 

 houses. Prof. Dcrleth confines his remarks to the 

 effect of the earthquake upon structures. Destructivity 

 is marked along a belt 300 miles in length and fifty 

 miles in breadth. Apparently there was an attempt to 

 tell outsiders that San Francisco had only been visited 

 by a fire, but Prof. Derleth thinks it will do San Fran- 

 cisco and California more good if it is admitted that 

 there really was an earthquake. Santa Rosa, like San 

 l-Vancisco, had fire simultaneously with the earth- 

 quake. Varieties of buildings in San Francisco are de- 

 scribed in a variety of terms. Some were honest, 

 some dishonest ; some were fire-traps, others fire-proof 

 without but not fire-proof within. Destruction varied 

 according to the nature of the ground on wiiich build- 

 ings were placed. The failure of water-pipes and 

 sewers is described in great detail. In short, this 

 essay is a treatise on building, for which thirty-nine 

 rules are given. With most of these we quite agree, 

 but not with all. Rule 4 refers to brick chimneys, 

 which, we are told, should be built of weak lime 

 mortar. Built in this way, when the earthquake comes 

 they will crumble and fall as individual bricks, but if 

 built with rich cement they will fall en bloc, and crush 

 through the roof. We admire what Prof. Derleth has 

 done off his own bat, which, taken altogether, is cer- 

 tainly good, but we cannot help suggesting that he 

 might with advantage have consulted the results 

 which have been arrived at with regard to construc- 

 tion Ln countries other than his own. 



Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the U.S. Geological Survey, 

 also describes the Great Fault, seventy-five miles from 

 which the shock was observed by nearly all persons 



NO. 201 1, VOL. i'Si 



awake, but at 200 miles it was perceived by only a 

 few. Mr. S. Taber, of the Stanford University, esti- 

 mates the area of greatest damage as being a little 

 more than 200 miles in length and forty miles in width. 

 The intensity of the shock was greatest along the line 

 of faulting, and the initial movement was parallel to 

 the same. 



Dr. F. Omori, of the Imperial University of Japan, 

 gives us interesting notes with regard to several points 

 not touched upon by other writers. He tells us that in 

 San Francisco the greatest number of monuments 

 were overturned towards the east; the ascertained 

 number of persons killed in San Francisco was 300, 

 while the total number of persons killed in the earth- 

 quake area was probably not more than tooo; the 

 double amplitude of motion in San Francisco was 

 about 4 inches, and the period was about i second. 

 For twenty or thirty years. Central California may 

 seismically be regarded as a very safe place. 



The last article is a personal narration by Mary 

 Austin. It is not intended to be scientific, but it con- 

 tains sufficient epigram, pathos, and humour to make 

 it well worth reading. The first words are, " there 

 are some fortunes harder to bear once they are done 

 with, than while they are doing." Later we read, 

 " It is perfectly safe to believe anything anyone tells 

 you of personal adventure ; the inventive faculty does 

 not exist which can outdo actuality." Speaking of 

 intelligence that reads God behind seismic disturb- 

 ance, the writer says that the actual damage done by 

 God to San Francisco was small beside the damage 

 that resides in man's contrivances. Man made things 

 carry the elements of their own destruction. 



J. Milne. 



ELECTRIC RAILWAYS. 

 Electric Raihi'ays Theoretically and Practically 



Treated. Vol. ii.. Engineering Preliminaries and 



Direct-current Substations. By Sydney W. Ashe. 



Pp. vi+2S2. (New Vork : D. Van Nostrand Co.; 



London: A. Constable and C. ., Ltd., 1907.) Price 



los. 6d. net. 

 npHIS is essentially a book for experts, and especi- 

 ■*• ally American experts. The English engineer 

 may find here and there in the book some informa- 

 tion that will be useful, but he must be an expert to 

 understand it. On the title-page we read that this 

 is " Volume Two," and that it deals with " Engineer- 

 ing Preliminaries and Direct-current Substations." 

 By preliminaries the author means statistics as to the 

 relations between the number of inhabitants in a town 

 and their requirements in the way of travelling 

 facilities. 



The amount of statistical material brought together 

 in the first few pages is ver\ large, but as it refers 

 exclusively to American towns it is almost useless 

 to the European expert. The condition of the public 

 roads, the scarcity of cabs, the hustling tendency of 

 the business man, and the general tendency to ride 

 rather than walk, all make for a greater development 

 of travel facilities by tramway than on this side of the 

 .■Xtlantic, so that the figures given by the author 



