BEHAVIOR OF INDIVIDUAL STRUCTURES. 105 
basement or first-story columns under the action of the heat. PL 
XLV, A, is a view taken in the first story of this building, which had 
been occupied by the City of Paris Dry Goods Company. This view 
is submitted as illustrating a typical but rather bad example of the 
loss of lower webs from hollow-tile floor arches. The column cover- 
ings shown in the view had suffered about as little as any others. 
The coverings of other columns in the same building were practically 
destroyed, as were also the partitions. The same sort of damage as 
that shown in PL XLV, A, was plainly visible in some of the upper 
stories of this building, especially the second story. 
A stairway carried on unprotected cast-iron strings was destroyed 
by the heat in this building. The same thing occurred in a number 
of other buildings in San Francisco, even where the stairways had 
been walled off by hollow-tile partitions or by partitions made of 
light studs, metal lathing, and plaster. It has generally been con- 
sidered — in commercial work, at any rate — unnecessary to protect a 
stairway carried on cast-iron strings, but the San Francisco fire 
showed that some form of protection is very essential. Where the 
inclosing partitions did not fail, the stairways were of course not 
seriously damaged, but as a matter of fact the partitions failed 
almost everywhere in San Francisco. 
UNION FERRY BUILDING. 
The Union Ferry Building (PL XLVI, A) is a large structure — 
j^ractically of monumental proportions — which forms the terminus of 
all the ferry lines plying between San Francisco and various other 
points on the bay. It is built on piles, with heavy stone walls, backed 
with brickwork. The stone is the grayish-green sandstone elsewhere 
described. The floor construction consists of steel beams and girders, 
Avith stone-concrete slabs reenforced with expanded metal. The lower 
flanges or girders and beams were not protected. Near the center of 
the west front a high tower rises to a considerable distance above the 
building. The fire did not gain entrance, but the building was verv 
seriously racked and damaged by the earthquake. The damage was 
not at all of a fatal nature, however, and the building was kept in 
practically continuous operation as a ferry terminus. The tower, 
which was built with a braced steel frame, inclosed to a height of 
several stories with a heavy wall composed of sandstone backed with 
brick, and closed in with wood and sheet metal above the masonry 
part, was so badly damaged that the masonry walls were being 
removed at the time of my inspection. To judge by the effects on this 
tower, the greatest intensity of the earthquake vibration must have 
been from northwest to southeast. The bracing was badly strained. 
