GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF SEPTEMBER TENTH 359 



Disenchantment Bay. — In inner Yakutat Bay, near the junction of 

 Russell Fiord and Disenchantment Bay, the great earthquake at noon 

 was felt by the same eight prospectors who were there during the shocks 

 of September 3 and early September 10. The testimony of these men — 

 Messrs. Bullman, the two Coxes, Flenner, Fults, Johnson, Smith, and 

 Stevens — is of great importance, as they were right in the midst of the 

 faulted area on one old fault-line, and consequently at the very origin of 

 the earthquake. Two of them have written accounts of their experienced^ 

 and the author has talked with a third, Mr. Flenner. Their accounts 

 agree well and seem in the main reliable. 



They were in two camps (figure 5) on the moraine and alluvial fan of 

 Variegated Glacier near the elbow in Yakutat Bay, where they were en- 

 gaged in placer mining. They had made a contrivance of suspended 

 hunting knives whose points touched and jingled when the earth trem- 

 l)led. With this they counted 52 shocks on September 10, culminating 

 in the great earthquake at noon. 



The shock was so severe that it was impossible to stand and two of the 

 men who were in a tent held on to the pole to keep from being thrown to 

 the ground, while a third fell over a stove in attempting to get outside. 

 The land swayed and undulated and was broken along jagged cracks and 

 moved up and down. This was estimated to have lasted two and a half 

 or three minutes. Numerous fish were killed by the shock. The dam of 

 a lake was broken and a flood washed down on the camp, burying part of 

 it beneath rocky debris. A great water wave, which seemed to be 20 feet 

 high, rushed upon the shore. Some of the men were w^ashed high up on 

 the moraine by this w^ave. There was a second wave 20 or 30 feet high. 

 Avalanches descended the mountain slopes with deafening roar. The 

 Hubbard Glacier, which is about two miles to the northwest and has a 

 tidal front five miles across, was broken and great quantities of ice dis- 

 charged mto the fiord. A boat was smashed to kindling wood and most 

 of the tents, provisions, bedding, and clothing were lost. A stream was 

 diverted from one course on the alluvial fan, divided, and reunited again. 



The men ran to and fro aimlessly, saving a few provisions and blan- 

 kets, and eventually seeking shelter on the mountain side. They tied 

 themselves to shrubs with strips of clothing and spent a disturbed after- 

 noon and night, harassed by roaring avalanches, swollen streams, rain, 

 occasional earthquakes, and anxiety as to the future. Their position was 

 precarious, for they were cut off from retreat by land by the crevassed 



^ L. A. Cox : The Sitka Alaskan, October 14, 1899. 

 J. P. Fults, .Tr. : Seattle Dally Times, September 28, 1899, and New York Sun, Sep- 

 tember 29, 1899. 



