STRUCTURAL STEEL AND STEEL-FRAME BUILDINGS. 145 
MASONRY WALLS AND STONEWORK. 
The stone exteriors of all the high steel-frame buildings were to 
a greater or less extent cracked or injured under the action of the 
earthquake. In some places, owing probably to imperfect bond be- 
tween the veneer and the steel frame, the stone veneer was displaced 
and the walls were bulged outward; in others, blocks were thrown 
to the ground and bricks or arch stones from windows and other 
exterior openings were dropped out of place. This disintegrati no- 
effect had its maximum in the intermediate stories between the top 
and the base of the building, a very good example being the Union 
Savings Bank in Oakland. This eleven-stOry steel-frame, stone- 
veneer structure gave opportunity for eareful and comprehensive 
study of earthquake effects independently of fire, since it is really 
the only high steel-frame structure in the disturbed area which was 
not subjected to fire. In this building the steel frame is intact and 
uninjured, so far as can be ascertained. The marble veneer along 
the stairways and corridors and the sandstone exterior, particularly 
in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh stories, were somewhat cracked 
and disturbed, indicating not only a bending but a shearing action ; 
and the brick in the arches in some of the windows in these stories 
have dropped to the ground. Otherwise the building escaped dam- 
age, and it has been continuously in use since the earthquake. 
The Aronson Building, at Third and Mission streets, had stone 
piers running from the bed up to the street level. These were badly 
wrenched and cracked by sheer action, and in the ninth story two 
courses of stone in the arches above the soffit course were badly 
cracked, apparently for the same reason. In the Call Building, 
where the stonework ends at the sidewalk level, the corner piers were 
not found to be cracked, but in the James Flood Building (Pis. 
XXXIII, B ; XXXV, A ) , where the stonework extends to the bottom 
of the basement, the corner piers were cracked by earthquake action. 
RELIABILITY OF STRUCTURAL STEEL. 
Structural steel is a very reliable material. It is produced and 
also placed in position by high-class skilled labor and is not subject 
to the flaws which sometimes appear in concrete work as a result of 
poor quality of labor and inefficient inspection. Builders in this 
country have had much experience in the use of structural steel, and 
feel sure of what it will do and for what it stands. It is no longer 
in the experimental stage as to resistance either to earthquake 
tremors or, when properly fireproofed, to conflagration. Construc- 
tors in San Francisco feel that this material has safely and trium- 
phantly passed through a most trying ordeal. 
