450 REPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE COMMISSION. 
day. Mr. H. D. Barrows, who was in that city on the day of the earthquake, in a letter 
dated August 5, 1906, communicates the following information as to his experiences: 
The great earthquake of January 9, 1857, in southern California, opened the ground for 
nearly 40 miles in a straight line near Elizabeth Lake. I had a brief account of it in the 
San Francisco Bulletin about February 1, 1857 — my letter (signed “ Observador’’) 
being dated January 28, 1857. 
Only one life was lost by that great convulsion of nature, a woman being killed at Fort 
Tejon by the falling of adobe walls; and, considering the colossal disturbance, very little 
damage was done to buildings here in Los Angeles. This is probably accounted for by the 
fact that our buildings were of only one story, with walls 2.5 and 3 feet thick. Atthetime of 
the great upheaval, I was in the yard at the south side of the adobe house of William Wolf- 
skill, the pioneer, near the present site of the Arcade Depot in Los Angeles. I first stumbled 
toward the west, and was almost thrown down; then, after a brief period, | commenced to 
stumble in the opposite direction. Other persons near me stumbled in similar fashion. 
The long wide corridor on the south side of the Wolfskill house was hung with grapes, and I 
noticed that they swung back and forth clear up to the rafters. Water in tanks was thrown 
out in numerous instances, clocks were stopt, etc. The movement seemed to be com- 
paratively slow, giving things time to recover after moving in one direction. If the motion 
had been short and sudden, the damage would have been appalling." 
All the houses in Santa Barbara were damaged by the shock of 11" 20” p, M., January 8. 
(Perry, Holden’s Catalogue.) 
At Visalia it was difficult to stand erect; treetops waved several feet to and fro; it 
was equally severe at places within 50 miles north and south. There were several 
shocks felt at Stockton and Benson’s Ferry, and the principal one was very severe at 
Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Monterey. (San Francisco Bulletin, Jan. 9, 1857.) 
At San Francisco the main shock was’preceded by 4 slight shocks at 11” 20" p, M., 
January 8; 11° 33", 4" 15", and 7" a. m., January 9. The main shock stopt a jeweler’s 
clock at 8" 13" 30° a.m. Prof. George Davidson, who was in the city at the time, says 
the shock was sudden and sharp, preceded by no noise. He was lying north and south, 
and felt the movement in that direction. A friend who was lying east and west was 
thrown out of bed. 
Professor Davidson also contributes the following: 
The wholesale grocery store of Goodwin Brothers faced east on Battery or Front Street, 
with its length of about 100 feet on Commercial Street. It was a l-story brick structure 
about 15 feet high, with a flat metallic roof and a fire-wall of 3 or 4 feet above and around 
the roof. There were no windows nor doors on Commercial Street. The fire wall along Com- 
mercial Street was thrown bodily from the main structure into the street. The inner edge 
of the bricks was a straight line, at a measured distance of 6 feet from the base of the wall, 
while the general mass was scattered across Commercial Street. In the hardware establish- 
ment of Philip T. Southworth, along the west side of the east wall, there was a line of nail 
kegs, every one exactly 12 inches from the baseboard. Before the shock they had been 
placed close to the baseboard. These two conditions would indicate a movement of the 
earth from the northward and westward — roughly, from the north-northwestward. I 
do not remember damages to other buildings, but am satisfied there were no serious results 
to property. Among minor details were the effects of the shock upon one of the piled 
wharves, where a lot of bar-buoys had been left. They had been rolled about in every 
direction. 
The following note on some of the effects of the shock in various parts of the state is 
extracted from Hittel’s “Resources of California,” 1863, p. 42: 
The waters of the Mokulumne River were thrown upon the bank, almost leaving the bed 
bare in one place. The current of the Kern River was turned up stream, and the waters 
ran 4 feet deep over the bank. The waterof Lake Tulare was thrown uponits shores, and the 
Los Angeles River was flung out of its bed. In Santa Clara Valley artesian wells were much 

* Los Angeles is about 40 miles from the line of the Rift. A. Cal BF 
