24 THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE. 
a number of them the arch stones had dropped partly out of place. 
The department of geology (PL XVIII, A), the newly completed end 
of the quadrangle, suffered the greatest damage; many of the walls 
will have to be rebuilt, having been either cracked very badly or 
destroyed entirely. The plastering was badly cracked and showed 
the outline of each sheet of metal lath. Where reenforced concrete 
was used the ceilings were free from cracks. 
The most interesting building is the museum (PL XIV, .1), which 
consists of a central pavilion of reenforced concrete and wings of 
brick plastered with cement mortar. The columns of the central 
pavilion are solid concrete, having been cast in place. This building 
had wooden floors. The wings were wrecked by the earthquake, but 
the central pavilion escaped injury, although its contents were more 
or less damaged, principally by being shaken from their positions. 
Although the destruction at Stanford University was very great, 
the character of construction was fair and did not suffer by com- 
parison with that used in other parts of the country. The excellent 
qualities of reenforced concrete and its ability to withstand earth- 
quake shock were strongly demonstrated. 
The town of Palo Alto suffered considerably from the earthquake. 
Chimneys were generally thrown down. A number of buildings 
were wholly or partly wrecked, the causes of the failures being 
similar to those in other sections, consisting largely of defects in de- 
sign, lack of adequate bracing, poor mortar, and bad workmanship. 
Three concrete-block buildings were either wholly or partly destroyed 
and have especial interest, since they have been cited as evidence of 
the failure of concrete blocks. Two of these buildings are located on 
Alma street opposite the station and on opposite sides of University 
avenue — the Thiele Building (PL XVII, A), a partially completed 
three-story structure, which was entirely wrecked, and the Fuller 
Building, a two-story structure, which also collapsed. The concrete- 
block walls, 13 inches thick, laid in cement mortar, were not braced 
in any way — the joists, 1} by 13, simply resting upon the wall. When 
the building vibrated, the wall was pushed out and collapsed because 
there was nothing to restore it to its normal position. This defect 
was more clearly shown in the one-story building of Vandervoort 
Brothers (PL XIX, Z?), in which the roof truss was simply butted 
against the block wall without tie or other connection. 
At Santa Rosa the destruction was greater than in any other section 
affected by the earthquake, and the fire that followed completely 
wiped out the business section of the town, which suffered a greater 
proportionate total loss than San Francisco. A concrete-block build- 
ing (PL XIX, A) in this town escaped with slight damage at the 
cornice only, where the blocks were thrown down, the reason 
being that the walls were tied to the roof timbers by tie-rods which 
