294 REPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE COMMISSION. 
0 
oO 
is) 
o 

CONSTRUCTION OF PIERS 

t = vt 
COP Ses | 
I rit 
! ae H 
I 1 i H 
' P ' 
' ' 
i 7 : 
a J 
4 ae ” 
South edge of stream 
LOATY SOULJVS: ——> 


Wire fence 

“ 
====7 
«+ North bank of channel 
12' Piles 
12"x 12" Cap 
2” Plank 

CONSTRUCTION OF PIERS 
The bridge is } mile long. 
Fic. 59. — Displacement of piers of highway bridge across Salinas River, 3 miles west of Gonzales. 
Watsonville, where the railroad track is only about 
200 yards from the beach, a stretch 100 yards long 
running northwesterly had shifted a maximum of 12 
feet to the northeast. Fences, telephone poles, and 
track all moved together. The sand-dunes facing the 
beach directly opposite the place where this movement 
occurred look as if they had been struck by a single 
large wave. 
Cracks appear again along the Pajaro River and the 
railway track has sunk in several places. The side 
rods of the narrow-gage bridge 1 mile south of Watson- 
ville are buckled as by a compressive force, and the . 
roadbed at both approaches has settled at least 2 
inches. 
Continuing up the Pajaro River, evidence of settling 
is found at the broad-gage railway bridge at Watson- 
ville, the southeast end of which sank more than a 
foot. The track was also twisted into an §-shape. 
The concrete foundation under the engine and stack 
at the power-house at the northwest end of the bridge 
settled, but the concrete work was little hurt. In 
Chinatown, on the south side of the river, the settling 
of the ground was marked. 
Between Pajaro and Vega the ground cracked along 
the 2 to 6 foot bluff, marking the old river bank on 
the south side of the present channel, and the side 
toward the river has settled several feet. This is 
well shown in plate 1418. This displacement has 
caused numerous sand craterlets and pits (plate 
1438); the largest pit noted being oval in shape, 6 
by 20 feet in diameter, and 4 feet deep. Northeast of 
Vega the movement,seems to have died out, the last 
evidence found being mud caps on some old piles in 
the channel of the stream, showing a settlement of the 
ground amounting to 8 inches. Between Vega and 
Chittenden no evidence of movement of the river-bed 
could be found. Near Chittenden the banks are caved 
in. Along the San Lorenzo River, at Santa Cruz, this 
settling action also took place for a mile or more up- 
stream from its mouth. 
It may be said, regarding the soil movement along 
these streams, that along the Salinas River from Gon- 
zales to near Blanco, everything shows a movement 
down the river. From Blanco to Neponset the move- 
ment seems to have been a settling of the alluvial 
materials, while from Neponset to the mouth of the 
Pajaro River the ground (in several places, at least) 
moved eastward or inland. Accepting as correct the 
reported lengths of piling at bridges, and depths at 
which the sand thrown up is said to have been found, the plane of movement must 
have been about 90 feet below the surface at Neponset, diminishing to possibly 8 or 
