ction. Streets on all sides were filled with
brick and mortar, buildings either completely collapsed or brick fronts
had just dropped completely off. Wagons with horses hitched to them,
drivers and all, lying on the streets, all dead, struck and killed by
the falling bricks, these mostly the wagons of the produce dealers,
who do the greater part of their work at that hour of the morning.
Warehouses and large wholesale houses of all descriptions either down,
or walls bulging, or else twisted, buildings moved bodily two or three
feet out of a line and still standing with walls all cracked.

"The Call building, a twelve-story skyscraper, stood, and looked all
right at first glance, but had moved at the base two feet at one end out
into the sidewalk, and the elevators refused to work, all the interior
being just twisted out of shape. It afterward burned as I watched it. I
worked my way in from the ferry, climbing over piles of brick and mortar
and keeping to the centre of the street and avoiding live wires that
lay around on every side, trying to get to my office. I got within two
blocks of it and was stopped by the police on account of falling walls.
I saw that the block in which I was located was on fire, and seemed
doomed, so turned back and went up into the city.

"Not knowing San Francisco, you would not know the various buildings,
but fires were blazing in all directions, and all of the finest and best
of the office and business buildings were either burning or surrounded.
They pumped water from the bay, but the fire was soon too far away from
the water front to make any efforts in this direction of much avail.
The water mains had been broken by the earthquake, and so there was no
supply for the fire engines and they were helpless. The only way out
of it was to dynamite, and I saw some of the finest and most beautiful
buildings in the city, new modern palaces, blown to atoms. First they
blew up one or two buildings at a time. Finding that of no avail, they
took half a block; that was no use; then they took a block; but in spite
of them all the fire kept on spreading.

"The City Hall, which, while old, was quite a magnificent building,
occupying a large square block of land, was completely wrecked by the
earthquake, and to look upon reminded one of the pictures of ancient
ruins of Rome or Athens. The Palace Hotel stood for a long time after
everything near it had gone, but finally went up in smoke as the rest.
You co