heroic soldiers, policemen and firemen were
maimed or killed outright.

At 10 o'clock at night the fire was unabated and thousands of people
were fleeing to the hills and clamoring for places on the ferry boats
at the ferry landing.

From the Cliff House came word that the great pleasure resort and show
place of the city, which stood upon a foundation of solid rock, had
been swept into the sea. This report proved to be unfounded, but it
was not until three days later that any one got close enough to the
Cliff House to discover that it was still safe.

One of the big losses of the day was the destruction of St. Ignatius'
church and college at Van Ness avenue and Hayes street. This was the
greatest Jesuitical institution in the west and built at a cost of
$2,000,000.

By 7 o'clock at night the fire had swept from the south side of the
town across Market street into the district called the Western
addition and was burning houses at Golden Gate avenue and Octavia.
This result was reached after almost the entire southern district from
Ninth street to the eastern water front had been converted into a
blackened waste. In this section were hundreds of factories, wholesale
houses and many business firms, in addition to thousands of homes.

CHAPTER II.

SAN FRANCISCO A ROARING FURNACE.

=Flames Spread in a Hundred Directions and the Fire
Becomes the Greatest Conflagration of Modern
Times--Entire Business Section and Fairest Part of
Residence District Wiped Off the Map--Palaces of
Millionaires Vanish in Flames or are Blown Up by
Dynamite--The Worst Day of the Catastrophe.=

Marius sitting among the ruins of Carthage saw not such a sight as
presented itself to the afflicted people of San Francisco in the dim
haze of the smoke pall at the end of the second day. Ruins stark
naked, yawning at fearful angles and pinnacled into a thousand
fearsome shapes, marked the site of what was three-fourths of the
total area of the city.

Only the outer fringe of the city was left, and the flames which swept
unimpeded in a hundred directions were swiftly obliterating what
remained.

Nothing worthy of the name of building in the business district and
not more than half of the residence district had escaped. Of its
population of 400,000 nearly 300,000 were homeless.

Gutted throughout its entire magnificent financial quarters by the
swift work of thirty hours and with a black ruin covering more than