ISOSEISMALS: DISTRIBUTION OF APPARENT INTENSITY. 281 
The tall brick chimney of the engine house (100 feet high) broke off 20 feet above the 
ground and fell in a northeasterly direction, without touching any other structure. 
Frequently window-panes remained unbroken in the lower parts of walls whose upper 
parts had been completely demolished. (See plate 108a, B.) 
The extent of the destruction is in some measure due to the use of weak mortar, the 
bricks having, as a rule, fallen separately rather than in aggregates. It is believed that 
well-built buildings would not have suffered such wholesale destruction as was witnessed 
here. 
Alviso to Milpitas (G. F. Zoffman). — Evidences of the earthquake at Alviso are 
shown only by fallen chimneys and cornices and by cracked walls of the brick ware- 
houses. No buildings were demolished and little serious damage of any kind was to be 
noted. From 1,500 to 2,000 feet west of the bridge over Coyote Creek, cracks cross the 
road in front of the Boot ranch-house, and several of them occur in the road leading to 
that house. (Plate 1408.) Some of these cracks are about 6 inches wide and have 
a general bearing of N. 43° W. Immediately after the earthquake, water flowed from 
some of them and brought up sand, which was heapt up about 6 inches high. The water 
ceased to flow after the second day. 
Near the dwelling house on the Boot place, the ground settled 11 inches on the east 
side of the crack. The fissures past under the corner of the dwelling house and the 
building was partly thrown from its foundation. The cellar beneath it was filled with 
water to a depth of from 2 to 3 feet. There is a capped artesian well in the yard of this 
house, and about this well is a pool of water 12 feet across. The west side of the pool 
was lifted 1 foot higher than the east side, and fish were thrown out of the pool. A 
hundred feet east the fissures past under the barn, and the ground settled on the west side. 
Water flowed from cracks in the yard and piled up sand 6 inches high on both sides. 
People living near Coyote Creek state that the water rose between 2 and 3 feet im- 
mediately after the earthquake; and up to April 26 the water in this stream had not 
returned to its normal level. At the bridge over Coyote Creek, on the Alviso-Milpitas 
road, the concrete abutments were thrust inward toward each other about 3 feet. A 
pile driven in the middle of the stream, which had been cut off below the water-level, 
was lifted about 2 feet and now rises above the water. 
About 150 feet north of this bridge the banks of the stream cracked, the fissures 
running parallel with the channel and the land on the creek side sliding toward the 
stream. (Plate 1404.) West of the stream, in an adjoining field, water rising thru 
cracks built up many craterlets of sand. (Plate 1434.) Residents of the vicinity state 
that the water rose 3 or 4 inches above the tops of these craterlets while they were 
being formed, and that it ceased to flow toward the end of the second day after the 
earthquake. 
In the road running northward along the west side of Coyote Creek from the bridge, 
many large cracks opened. Five hundred feet north of the bridge the cracks were 2.5 
feet wide and 3 feet deep when the place was visited April 26. Farther north the cracks 
were very abundant, mostly parallel with the road, and some were 4 feet deep and 3 feet 
wide. A quarter of a mile north of the bridge, the whole road was shoved eastward into 
the channel of the creek, and with it a large number of willows and cottonwood trees 
that grew along the banks. Just south of this place the road was broken up badly for 
a distance of 300 feet. One of the largest cracks in the road was 5 feet wide, 6 feet 
deep, and more than 100 feet in length. The bearing of the fissures at this place was 
N. 28° W. For the most part the principal features were approximately parallel with 
Coyote Creek. 
At Mrs. North Whitcomb’s ranch, on the south side of the Alviso-Milpitas road, be- 
tween Coyote Creek and Milpitas, the prune orchard was cracked and the ground shifted 
