204 REPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE COMMISSION. 
Sebastopol, Sonoma County. Population 1,300. (R. S. Holway.) — Several buildings 
were completely wrecked. (Plate 814, B.) The 2-story Knowles Hotel, a frame 
building, veneered with brick, went completely down, flattening the first story. The 
walls of the hotel fell out, so that the occupants of the rooms in the second story walked 
out on the ground level. The upper part of a brick stable was wrecked; also the upper 
part of the Walker Building, which is to the north in the same block. Three stores just 
south of the post-office were completely wrecked. North and south side walls both fell 
south, one falling out, the other into the building. The contents were badly scattered. 
A new frame house, a 2-story structure, was moved from 3 to 8 inches on the concrete 
foundation and the walls were cracked and wrenched. 
The cemetery, about 0.7 mile west, is more severely wrecked than the Santa Rosa 
Cemetery. Nearly 90 per cent of the monuments of any size were thrown down. (See 
plate 80c, p.) The great majority of square monuments fell south. The heavy Talmage 
monument was moved southeast on its base. The sheet lead under the southeast corner 
shows one set of regular strize; the lead under the north corners is untouched. Cracks 
occur in the ground near the cemetery and near the Burbank ranch. 
Mr. R. M. Hathaway, writing from a place 3 miles northwest of Sebastopol, sends the 
following information: 
Many frame buildings in the vicinity were thrown from their foundations and some of 
them so damaged as to be uninhabitable. Chimneys were all shaken down, also brick 
furnaces. There are no brick buildings around here. The earthquake at my point of ob- 
servation seemed to have an oscillatory motion, the vibrations traveling north and south. 
My house is a two and one-half story frame building on a low ridge of sandy hills running 
north and south, west of and parallel to the Santa Rosa Valley. All objects seemed to have 
a tendency to move toward the south. All furniture against the north walls was thrown 
down violently, some on the south wall going down also; while some remained upright as 
tho supported by the wall. Furniture against the east and west walls was moved toward 
the south. 
The chimneys all fell to the south. Window casings on east and west walls were wrenched 
so as to break some glass. Injury to the frame houses in the vicinity, apart from damage 
due to falling chimneys, seemed to consist in throwing them from their foundations, and 
where a house consisted of several portions in the form of wings, these were separated. The 
foundations in some instances crusht, letting the buildings down to the ground. Well- 
constructed frame buildings, where the foundations were low, did not collapse. At the 
Sebastopol Cemetery, about a mile west of Sebastopol, the monuments were nearly all over- 
thrown, falling in all directions, altho I estimate that fully half of them, if not more, fell to 
the south. I did not notice any change in water level, the change if any being small. There 
were some fissures made in the ground near here. 
President David Starr Jordan contributes the following note relative to the effects of 
the earthquake at Sebastopol: 
The violence of the recent earthquake was very great at Santa Rosa; much less at Peta- 
luma, which is equally near the crack and on still flatter ground; and still less at San Rafael 
farther south but the same distance from the earthquake Rift. At Sebastopol, 6 miles 
west of Santa Rosa, the violence was relatively still greater, the village being tremendously 
shaken up. At Burbank’s farm, 0.5 mile west of Sebastopol, I noted these things: In the 
lot adjoining, to the south, the soil being clayey, there is a large crack running northwest 
and southeast, or nearly so, and, according to Burbank, 0.25 mile long. It runs thru the 
fields and weeds, and was very distinct on August 6. The end of this crack comes up 
against the sandy hill occupied by Mr. Burbank’s orchard. The crack does not show itself 
in the hill, but on the east side of the line of the crack the rows of trees and plants were 
shifted toward the south — or, if you prefer it, those on the west side toward the north — 
2 or 3 feet. A well of Mr. Burbank’s, sunk in the sandy ground, is bodily shifted, without 
being injured, along with the rows of plants between which it is placed. No crack appears 
at the surface in Burbank’s ground, but on the other side of the hills, to the north of it, I 
was told the crack reappears. . ) 
