GENERALIZATIONS CONCERNING EARTHQUAKES 27 



it a "terrific shock," an "extraordinarily severe shock 

 which produced great release of strain" and one which 

 "affected all the region from San Juan Bautista in 

 the latitude of Monterey Bay down to the Salton Sea." 

 The line so described is that of the San Andreas Rift, 

 which as we have shown, does not run through Los 

 Angeles. It is possible that the whole fabric of his 

 ingenious theory of disaster is founded on this erron- 

 eous association of the course of that line with the lo- 

 cation of our city. 



THE LOS ANGELES CITY REGION ONE OF 

 MILD SEISMICITY 



There is no positive proof that a serious earthquake 

 has ever taken place in Los Angeles. In all the history 

 of Los Angeles, there is no record of a good building 

 having been thrown down or a person injured by an 

 earthquake. This is saying a good deal in view of the 

 fact that some of the flimsiest buildings ever con- 

 structed have at various times been built in the city. 



Concerning the severest and best observed quake we 

 have had, that of July 16, 1920, the center of which 

 may have been somewhere near First and Alvadaro, 

 the record shows that only "the plaster was cracked 

 and globes broken." When considered in the light of 

 the fact that the origin was within the well-built, city 

 area, the damage was slight indeed. 



In spite of the endeavor to pass the trouble 

 along to Southern California, the fact remains that 

 the greatest earthquake movement in California of 

 historic times was that of the San Andreas rift in 

 1906 at or near San Francisco, where, it is stated, that 

 for a short distance the west side of the fault, to a 

 depth of four or five miles, moved horizontally north- 

 west twenty-one feet in forty seconds. 



