80 THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE. 
The stairways in this building had apparently been partitioned 
off by hollow-tile partitions, but these were totally wrecked, and the 
stairways were in such condition that it was only with great diffi- 
culty and by going on all fours that they could be used to reach the 
upper story. In the west wall of this building I saw the remains of a 
wire-glass window, with metal sash and frame, which had been prac- 
tically destroyed by the heat — probably, however, as a result of a 
simultaneous attack by the fire from both sides. Wire glass seems 
to have done some good service in other buildings in San Francisco, 
although in the Merchants' Exchange, as in the Aronson Building, 
it failed completely, so that a constructing engineer, who had drawn 
his conclusions entirely from what he saw in the Merchants' Ex- 
change, was disposed to condemn wire glass outright. 
BULLOCK & JONES BUILDING. 
The steel-frame Bullock & Jones Building was faced with orna- 
mental terra cotta, with hollow-tile column covering and reenforced- 
concrete slabs which were haunched on the beams, the slab reenforce- 
ment apparently not being continuous over the tops of the beams. 
Some of the floor slabs collapsed, and the column coverings failed 
entirely. Two columns in the third story had buckled in the same 
way the columns buckled in the Aronson Building. This building 
Avas rather more flimsy even than the average commercial building, 
and the fire nearly brought it down. PL XXVI, A, is an interior 
view showing the buckled columns in the second story. It will be 
observed that pipes were run up inside of the column coverings. 
Where similar conditions existed in Baltimore it was maintained by 
those interested in the particular system of column covering used 
that the pipes had got hot, expanded, and thrown the covering off. 
My own opinion was and is that the covering must have failed first, 
otherwise the pipe would not have become hot. It may be that after 
the covering had partially failed, the pipe got hot and completed the 
destruction, but if the covering had been efficient to begin with, 
there would have been no trouble with the pipe. 
A comparison of the conditions in the Bullock & Jones Building 
with those shown in other views — for example, in the illustrations 
of the Aronson Building — is sufficient to justify the opinions herein 
expressed. PL XXVI, J., shows that one of the panels of the floor 
system had collapsed. My examination of the Bullock & Jones 
Building indicated that the reenforced-concrete floor construction 
was haunched on the lower flanges of the floor beams. The photo- 
graph confirms this observation, as will be seen by examining the 
naked floor beam which appears in the lower left-hand portion of 
the view. The reenforcement of a floor slab should always be con- 
