io6 TJie America?i Geologist. February, 1900 
THE EARTHQUAKE AT SAN JACINTO, 
DECEMBER 25, 1899. 
By E. W. Claypole. 
(Plate III.) 
On Christmas morning southern CaHfornia was visited l)y 
an earthquake, or rather earth-tremor, which locally assumed 
unwonted severity and was attended with disastrous conse- 
quences. A part of the region along the southern side of the Si- 
ena Madre was shaken, but over llie greater portion of it the 
sliock was harmless. At 4.25 a. m., a trembling, or, as it is lo- 
cally called in Spanish, a "temblor," awakened the resident's by 
a series of slight tremors, lasting from thirty seconds to one 
minute and was accompanied in some places by the usual roar- 
ing sound. 
As news gradually came in we learned that at the village of 
San Jacinto considerable damage had been done, either by an 
iniensification of the energy of the seismic force or by the 
local conditions. 
The shock was extensive, having been felt from the coast 
inland for at least 150 miles. How far it extended northward 
into the mountains cannot at present be ascertained. But at 
Banning, about 20 miles in that direction, the Catholic school, 
a three-story structure, was slightly damaged. 
The shocks have been repeated several times i:ince and on 
the 3d, w^hen the writer visited the village, two occurred about 
one o'clock p. m. with a roar like distant thunder and a jar 
which, though imperceptible, was sufficient to shake down 
bricks from the shattered walls. 
The data for determining the time are scanty and scarcely 
exact enough to allow us to place much reliance on them. 
The writer at Pasadena was awakened by the shock and noted 
the hour 4 :24. Generally speaking, the clocks that were stop- 
ped indicated by their figures a transmission of the shock from 
west or southwest to northeast or east. This is the usual di- 
rection in this region and apparently implies some adjustment 
of strata going on near the coast-line, the jars from which pass 
inland, manifesting themselves with greater or less force ac- 
cording to the accident of the strata through which they are 
transmitted. 
The most distant point from which reports have been 
noticed in the papers is "the Needles," the point where the 
