PARK AND CEMETERY 
12 ] 
Scientist Explains Twisting of Monuments By’ EarthquaKe. 
Our illustrations show the freakish way in which 
the shock twisted and turned the monuments of 
San Francisco. 
One picture shows how an elaborate private 
monument in Laurel Hill Cemetery was wrenched 
to pieces. The shaft and ornamental carving may 
be seen lying on the ground. The die is supported 
by one of the corner columns and is on the verge of 
falling. On the other hand the Italian marble 
statue mounted on a boulder pedestal in the same 
cemetery shown in another picture, escaped unin- 
jured, though seemingly much less substantially 
mounted. 
Prof. Edgar L. Larkin, of the Mount Lowe Ob- 
servatory, in California, has made the accompanying 
interesting diagram showing the displacement of 
monuments in the cemeteries, which appeared in a 
recent issue of the Scientific American. He says; 
“A cemetery filled with monuments, columns, and 
obelisks is a capital place to study the eflfects of 
V DAMAGED MONUMENT IN LAUREL HILL CEMETERY, 
5AN FRANCISCO. 
STATUE UNINJURED IN LAURKI. HILL CEMETERY, 
SAN FRANCISCO. 
an earthquake. Amplitudes and azimuths of dis- 
turbed monoliths and pillars reveal at once the 
action of the earth upheavals. I had no instruments 
with which to measure, so had to make estimates. 
“Laurel Hill Cemetery I found a field of distorted, 
shifted, turned, cracked, overthrown, and ruined 
columns, pillars, shafts, capitals in white marble, 
gray granite, and other materials. Angels’ wings 
were broken, sculptures were round about, and 
heavy bases were twisted out of their original po- 
sitions. At first I noted distortions on both sides 
of an avenue of tombs. Here are directions in which 
the tops of fallen columns and monuments were 
pointing along either side, in a distance of 150 feet: 
N. T. S. 2. E. 9, W. 5. N.E. 4, N.W. 5, S.E. 5, S.W. 
