82 THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE. 
hollow tiles. When I saw the building the column coverings and 
partitions throughout were either down or so badly shattered that 
nearly all of them would have to be taken down and rebuilt, and 
the furring had fallen from many of the outer walls. The chief 
engineer of the building stated that it was practically undamaged 
immediately after the earthquake, and that the fire which subse- 
quently gained access did not damage it very much, but that a large 
part of the ruin of the partitions and column coverings was due to 
the concussions from the dynamite used in demolishing dangerous 
walls in the neighborhood. 
The hollow-tile covering of the steel work came down pretty gen- 
erally throughout the building. Whether or not this failure resulted 
from the fire, close examination of the steel work proved that the 
tile covering was totally inadequate, because in many places there 
had been heat enough to burn the paint entirely off the steel and to 
leave indications of high temperature on the metal itself. Photo- 
graphs taken of the Call Building during the progress of the fire 
indicate that the fire was not very fierce, yet, in my judgment, some 
of the steel members were very close to serious damage as a result of 
it. So magnificent a piece of steel work deserved better fireproof 
covering than it had; but, as a matter of fact, the steel itself was 
observed to be fire blackened in many places. The furred ceilings in 
this building in general suffered so much damage that they should 
be taken down altogether. The marble finish throughout, while not 
absolutely destroyed, was so damaged as to be worthless. The 
reenforced-concrete floor slabs stood fairly well, but some of the 
concrete looked as if it had suffered appreciably from the heat. 
On the exterior the Call Building showed absolutely no damage 
from the earthquake except in the story immediately above the main 
cornice, where, in the parts adjacent to the four corners, a few stones 
had evidently slipped so that the joints had opened up for possibly 
half an inch or more. The exterior of the building was faced with 
the grayish-green sandstone which is used for so many buildings in 
San Francisco. This stone, wherever the fire struck it, not only 
spalled very badly, but had its color very largely burned out, so that 
what remained was a dull and lifeless buff gray, the green having 
totally disappeared. 
Examination of the Call Building from the exterior produced the 
impression that it was slightly out of plumb to the southeast, but 
later information showed that this estimate of the direction in which 
the building leaned was incorrect. Captain Kelly kindly sent a man 
with a plumb line to verify the observation. He plumbed the build- 
ing from the tenth floor, as its dimensions were reduced somewhat 
above this point, He found that the building leans uniformly toward 
Market and Third streets ; at the tenth floor the building overhangs 
