Earthquake at Sa?i Jacinto. — Clay pole. 107 
Santa Fe railway crosses the Colorado river. The sender says : 
"A terrific shock of earthquake at 4:35 a. m., lasted fully thirty 
seconds, stopping all clocks. It broke glass and gave the 
town a thorough shaking. The vibration was from northeast 
to southwest." 
The "Needles" is about 150 miles directly from San Jacinto 
and the difference in time which may probably be trusted (this 
being an important station on the railway), indicates that the 
jar was traveling in the opposite direction to that given in the 
dispatch. Other evidence will be given belovy. 
A report that smoke was seen rising from mount Tanquity 
was apparently due to the occurrence of a great land slide on 
its slopes, wdiere a large area is said to have the appearance of 
having lately been ploughed. 
The villages of San Jacinto and Hemet stand in an elevated 
valley filled with detritus from the ridges of the San Jacinto 
mountain mass, whose topmost peaks attain the hight of 
10,987 feet. To reach the Needles the shock must have 
passed the two nearly p?.rallel ranges of San Jacinto and San 
Bernardino and traversed the intervening portion of the Colo- 
rado desert. No destruction is reported over this wide inter- 
val, but this may be due to the fact that nothing existed there 
which could be destroyed rather than to any lack of destructive 
force in the shock. 
A visit paid to the two villages a few days after the occur- 
rence of the earthquake showed the writer that the accounts 
were not in the least exaggerated. There are but a few brick 
buildings in either of them, but every one of these has been sc 
severely injured that it may be fairly called a wreck. A walk 
through the street of San Jacinto soon showed that the direction 
of the shock had been approximately at right angles to it, but 
it was not easy to decide in which direction it had passed. The 
front walls were thrown forward into the street on both sides, 
while the back walls had fallen out from the street. The east 
and west walls are less injured, but in most cases their upper 
part, that is the upper two to ten rows of bricks, have been 
thrown out. As a rule no serious mischief has l:)een done be- 
low the second story, which fact seems to indicate that the 
wave was short and steep rather than long and low. Its 
amplitude certainly was small. 
