XI.

MUD VOLCANOES, GEYSERS AND HOT SPRINGS

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY BY EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE

CHAPTER I.

San Francisco and Its Terrific Earthquake.

On the splendid Bay of San Francisco, one of the noblest harbors on the
whole vast range of the Pacific Ocean, long has stood, like a Queen of
the West on its seven hills, the beautiful city of San Francisco, the
youngest and in its own way one of the most beautiful and attractive of
the large cities of the United States. Born less than sixty years ago,
it has grown with the healthy rapidity of a young giant, outvieing many
cities of much earlier origin, until it has won rank as the eighth city
of the United States, and as the unquestioned metropolis of our far
Western States.

It is on this great and rich city that the dark demon of destruction has
now descended, as it fell on the next younger of our cities, Chicago, in
1872. It was the rage of the fire-fiend that desolated the metropolis
of the lakes. Upon the Queen City of the West the twin terrors of
earthquake and conflagration have descended at once, careening through
its thronged streets, its marts of trade, and its abodes alike of
poverty and wealth, and with the red hand of devastation sweeping one
of the noblest centres of human industry and enterprise from the face of
the earth. It is this story of almost irremediable ruin which it is our
unwelcome duty to chronicle. But before entering upon this sorrowful
task some description of the city that has fallen a prey to two of the
earth's chief agents of destruction must be given.

San Francisco is built on the end of a peninsula or tongue of land lying
between the Pacific Ocean and the broad San Francisco Bay, a noble body
of inland water extending southward for about forty miles and with a
width varying from six to twelve miles. Northward this splendid body of
water is connected with San Pablo Bay, ten miles long, and the latter
with Suisun Bay, eight miles long, the whole forming a grand range of
navigable waters only surpassed by the great northern inlet of Puget
Sound. The Golden Gate, a channel five miles long, connects this
great harbor with the sea, the whole giving San Francisco the greatest
commercial advantages to be found on the Pacific coast.

THE EARLY DAYS OF SAN FRANCISCO.

The original site of the city was a grant made by the King of Spain of
four square leagues of land. Congress afterwards confirmed this grant.
It was