The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire Part 16

At Hanc.o.c.k, Mich., a shock was felt on April 19th a mile below the surface in the Quincy mine of such severity that one man was killed and four injured by a fall of rock loosened by the trembling of the earth.

There is no evidence, however, that this had any connection with the California disaster, the dates not coinciding.

Turning to the Far East, across the Pacific, seismographs in the Imperial University of Tokio showed that the earthquake was felt there eleven minutes later than in San Francisco, and similar instruments in Manila detected the arrival of the seismic waves twenty minutes after the San Francisco shock. In this there was a slight difference in time compared with Tokio, but, considering the distance, near enough to prove that the disturbances came from the same source.

Not until the day following was any noticeable disturbance felt in Honolulu, but on April 19th shocks were plainly felt for six minutes and the water in the harbor rose rapidly. Panic seemed imminent just before the shocks subsided. While earthquakes are by no means infrequent in these islands, this was more severe than any recorded in recent years, causing buildings to sway to and fro and partly demolishing some of frail construction.

If, as the majority of men qualified to discuss earthquakes seem to think, the San Francisco earthquake had no connection with volcanic action, but was caused by what is technically known as a "fault" in the formation of the crust of the earth, it seems easy enough to account for these wave motions travelling round the earth. How widely this may really have made itself felt it is not possible to say. Several of the great earthquakes in j.a.pan have been recorded in the seismographs of the observatories on every continent and in Australia, showing that in severe disturbances of this kind the whole surface strata quiver, alike under the oceans and over the continents and islands. At the time of a shock, of course, half of the world is in darkness and asleep. This is taken to account for the fact that so far only a few observatories have reported catching the San Francisco vibrations.

The instruments invented for the recording of the motions of the earth's crust are looked upon by scientists as the most delicate of all machines. So highly sensitive are they, indeed, that the very slightest vibratory motion is recorded perfectly. Even the tread of feet cannot escape this instrument if sufficient to cause a vibration.

There are three cla.s.ses of instruments for the automatic recording of earth tremors, each with its own particular function. First is the seismoscope, which will merely detect and record the fact that there has been such a tremor. Some of these are so equipped as to indicate the time of the disturbance.

Second, is the seismometer, the function of which is to measure the maximum force of the shock, either with or without an indication of its direction. The third instrument is the seismograph, which is so arranged that it will accurately record the number, succession, direction, amplitude and period of successive oscillations. This last instrument is by far the most delicate of the three.

In the construction of this earthquake recording machine the maker must so suspend a heavy body that when its normal position is disturbed in the most infinitesimal degree no reactionary force will be developed tending to restore it to its original position. The inventor has never been found who could accomplish this suspension of a body to perfection.

The seismograph of to-day, however, has reached a stage of perfection where close approximations are obtained in the records made.

CHAPTER XV.

Vesuvius Devastates the Region of Naples.

We have in other chapters described the terrible work of Mount Vesuvius in the past, from the far-off era of the destruction of Pompeii down to the end of the last century. There comes before us now another frightful eruption, one of the greatest in its history, that of 1906. For thirty years before this outbreak the mighty volcano had been comparatively quiet, rarely ceasing, indeed, to smoke and fume, but giving little indication of the vast forces buried in its heart. It showed some sympathy with Mont Pelee in 1902, and continued restless after that time, but it was not until about the middle of February, 1906, that it became threatening, lava beginning to overflow from the crater and make its lurid way down the mountain's side.

It was in the middle of the first week of April that these indications rose to the danger point, the flow of lava suddenly swelling from a rivulet to a river, pouring in a gleaming flood over the crater's rim, and meeting the other streams that came streaming down the volcano's rugged flank. While this went on the mountain remained comparatively quiet, there being no explosions, though a huge cloud of volcanic ash and cinders rose high in the air until it hung over the crater in the shape of an enormous pine tree, while from it a shower of dust and sand, soon to become terrible, began to descend upon the surrounding fields and towns.

Dangerous as is Vesuvius at any time, the people of the vicinity dare its perils for the allurement of its fertile soil. A ring of populous villages encircles it, flourishing vineyards and olive groves extend on all sides, and the hand of industry does not hesitate to attack its threatening flanks. The intervals between its death-dealing throes are so long that the peasants are always ready to dare destruction for the hope of winning the means of life from its soil.

THE RIVERS OF LAVA.

All this locality was now a field of terror and death. Down on the vineyards and villages poured the smothering ashes in an ever increasing rain; toward them slowly and threateningly crawled the fiery serpents of the lava streams; and from their homes fled thousands of the terror-stricken people, frantic with horror and dismay. A number of populous villages were threatened by the lurid lava streams, the most endangered being Bosco Trecase, with its 10,000 inhabitants. Toward this devoted town poured steadily the irresistible flood of molten rock. The soldiers who had been hurried to the front sought to divert its flow by digging a wide ditch across its course and throwing up a high bank of earth, but they worked in vain. The demon of destruction was not to be robbed of its prey. The liquid stream advanced like a colossal serpent of fire, turning its head like a crawling snake to the right and left, but keeping steadily on toward the fated town. The ditch was filled; the bank gave way; the first house was reached and burst into flames; the creeping stream of fire pushed on to the next houses in its way; only then did the despairing people desert their homes and flee for their lives, carrying with them the little they could s.n.a.t.c.h of their treasured possessions.

F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, who was present at this scene, thus describes the flight of the terrified people:

"I saw men, women and children and infants, whose mothers carried them at the breast or in their ap.r.o.ns, fleeing in an endless procession.

Dogs, too, and cats were on the carts, and sometimes even chickens, tied together by the legs, and piles of mattresses and pillows and shapeless bundles of clothes. All were white with dust. Under the lurid glare I saw one old woman lying on her back across a cart, ghastly white and, if not dead already of fear and heat and suffocation, certainly almost gone. We ourselves could hardly breathe."

It was on Sat.u.r.day, the 7th, that Bosco Trecase became the prey of the river of molten rock. During that night and the following day the crisis of the eruption came. The observatory on the mountain side was occupied by Professor Matteucci, his a.s.sistant, Professor Perret, of New York, and two domestics, all others having been sent away. Their description of the scene in which they found themselves is vividly picturesque. At midnight the situation in the observatory was terrible. The forces of the earthquake were let loose and the ground rocked so that it was almost impossible to stand. The roaring of the main crater was deafening, while the volcano poured forth its contents like a fountain, and the electric display was terrifying, constant claps of thunder following the lurid flashes of lightning, which gave the sky a blood-red hue.

Shortly after three o'clock in the morning the explosive energy of the mighty ma.s.s culminated. The whole cone burst open with a tremendous earthquake shock, from the heart of the recently silent mountain came a deafening roar, and red-hot rocks, like the b.a.l.l.s from nature's mighty artillery, were hurled a half mile into the air, while a dense ma.s.s of ashes and sand was flung to three or four times this height. All the next day the terrible detonation kept up, and a hail of bullet-like stones poured downward from the skies. Rarely has a more terrible Sunday been seen. It was as if the demons of earth and air were let loose and were seeking to destroy man and his puny works.

THE CRISIS OF THE ERUPTION.

This frightful explosion of the 8th of April was the worst of the dreadful display of volcanic forces, but the work kept up with diminishing intensity much of the following week. The ashes and cinders continued to pour down in suffocating showers, covering the ground to a depth of four or five feet in the vicinity of the volcano and to a considerable depth at Naples, ten miles away. The sun disappeared behind the thick cloud that filled the air, and the scene resembled that described by Pliny more than eighteen hundred years before.

Of Bosco Trecase nothing was left but the large stone church and a few houses. Another river of lava reached the outskirts of Torre del Greco, and a third stopped at the cemetery of Torre Annunziata. Those towns escaped, but thousands of acres of fertile cultivated land, with farm houses and stock, were destroyed. The peninsular railway up the mountain was ruined and the large hotel burned. One writer tells the following tale of what he saw on that fatal Sat.u.r.day and Sunday:

"On the road I met hundreds of families in flight, carrying their few miserable possessions. The spectacle of collapsing carts and fainting women was frequently seen. When one reached the lava stream a stupefying spectacle presented itself. From a point on the mountain between the towns I saw four rivers of molten fire, one of which, 200 feet wide and over 40 deep, was moving slowly and majestically onward, devouring vineyards and olive groves. I witnessed the destruction of a farm house enveloped on three sides by lava. Immediately overhead the great crater was belching incandescent rock and scoria for an incredible distance.

The whole scene was wreathed with flames, and a perpetual roar was heard. Ever and anon the cone of the volcano was encircled with vivid electric phenomena, amid which a downpour of liquid fire on all sides of the crater was revealed in magnificent awfulness. In the evening there was a frightful shock of earthquake, which was repeated at two o'clock on Sunday morning. Simultaneously the lava streams redoubled their onrush, and men, women and children fled precipitately toward the sea.

The lava had invaded the road behind them."

A REIGN OF TERROR.

The great loss of life was due to the vast fall of ashes, which crushed in hundreds of roofs and buried the occupants within the ruins of their homes. In all the neighboring towns buildings were destroyed in great numbers, an early estimate being that fully 5,000 houses had been partly crushed or utterly destroyed. On the Ottajano side of the mountain, where the ashes fell in greatest profusion, all the houses of the villages were damaged, and Ottajano itself was left a wreck, several hundred dead bodies being taken from its ruins. In Naples the ash fall was so incessant that those who could afford it wore automobile coats, caps and goggles, while the people generally sought to save their eyes and faces by the aid of paper masks and umbrellas. The drivers of trolley cars were obliged to wear masks of some transparent material under the vizors of their caps.

DISASTERS AT SAN GIUSEPPE AND NAPLES.

There were two special disasters attended by serious loss of life. On the 9th, while a congregation of two hundred or more were attending ma.s.s in the church at San Giuseppe, the roof crushed in from the weight of ashes upon it and fell upon the worshippers below, few or none of whom escaped unhurt. Fifty-four dead bodies were taken from the ruins and a large number were severely injured. The Mayor of the town was dismissed from his office for leaving his post of duty in the face of danger.

The second disaster, one of the same character, took place at Naples.

This was on Tuesday, April 10th. Just previous to it the people had been marching in religious processions through the streets, to render thanks for the apparent cessation of the activity of Vesuvius. Motley but picturesque processions were these, headed by boys carrying candles, which burned simply in the full sunshine and bearing aloft images of the Madonna or saints, clad in gorgeous robes of cheap blue or yellow satin. Their joy was suddenly changed to grief by tidings of a frightful disaster. The roof of the Monte Oliveto market, fronting on the Toledo, the main thoroughfare, had suddenly crushed in, burying more than 200 people beneath its heavy fall.

The market had been crowded with buyers and their children, and it was the busiest hours of the day in the great roofed courtyard, covering a s.p.a.ce 600 feet square, when, with scarcely a tremor of warning, there came a frightful crash and a dense cloud of dust covered the scene, from out of which came heartrending screams of agony. The volcanic ash which, unnoticed, had gathered thickly on the roof, had broken it in by its weight.

The news set the people frantic with grief and indignation. They insisted that the authorities knew that the roof was unsafe and had neglected their duty. Cursing and screaming in their intense excitement, they surrounded the market, endeavoring with frantic haste to remove the heavy beams from beneath which came the appealing calls for help, many of the rescuers sobbing aloud as they worked. It required a large force of police and soldiers to keep them back and permit the firemen and other trained workers to carry on more systematically the work of relief. Twelve persons proved to have been killed, two fatally injured, twenty-four seriously hurt and over a hundred badly bruised and cut.

Among these were many children, whose parents had sent them to do the marketing without a dream of danger, and the grief of the parents was intense. The Duke of Aosta, Prefect of Naples, directed the work of rescue, while his wife a.s.sisted in the care of the injured. As the d.u.c.h.ess bent in the hospital to give a cooling drink to a badly bruised little girl she felt a kiss upon her hand. Looking down, she saw a woman kneeling at her feet, who gratefully said: "Your Excellency, she is all I have. I am a widow. May G.o.d reward you."

While this scene of horror was taking place in Naples the fate of the town and villages grouped around the foot of the volcano seemed as hopeless as ever. Early on the 10th the showers of ashes and streams of lava diminished and almost ceased, but later the same day they began again, and the terrified inhabitants feared that a catastrophe like that which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum was about to visit them. The lava which reached the cemetery of Torre Annunziata turned in the direction of Pompeii as if to freshly entomb that exhumed city of the past. A violent storm of sulphurous rain fell at San Giuseppe, Vesuviana and Sariano, and on all sides the fall of sand and ashes came on again in full strength. Even with the sun shining high in the heavens the light was a dim yellow, in the midst of which the few persons who still haunted the stricken towns moved about in the awful stillness of desolation like gray ghosts, their clothing, hair and beards covered with ashes.

THE ERUPTION RESUMED.

A typical case was that of Torre del Greco. Though for thirty hours the place had been deserted, a few ghostly figures could be seen at intervals when the vivid flashes of lightning illuminated the gloom-covered scene, wandering desolately about, hungry and thirsty, their throats parched by smoke and dust, yet unable to tear themselves away from the ruins of their late comfortable homes.

So deep was the ash fall that railway or tramway travel to the inner circle of towns was impossible, and the great depth of fallen dust choked the roads so as to render travel by carriage or on foot very difficult. A party of officials made a tour of inspection by automobile, visiting a number of the town, but were prevented by the state of the roads from reaching others. Ottajano was thus cut off from travel, and a heavy fall of ashes followed the officials in their retreat. At Bosco Trecase the lava had gathered into a lake, already growing solid on top, but a ma.s.s of liquid rock beneath.

The lava carried vast ma.s.ses of burnt stone and sulphur on its surface, like dross on melted lead, and nothing was visible toward Bosco Trecase but endless acres of dark scoriae, broken here and there by the greenish, curling smoke of sulphur. At one point a great cone pine tree, torn up by its roots and turned to black charcoal, stuck out of the ma.s.s at a sharp angle. The air was almost unbearable, the heat intense, and few could long bear the dangers and discomfort of the situation.

SCENES OF HORROR.

The greatest depth of ashes encountered was in the vicinity of Ottajano.

Here large areas were buried to a depth of several feet. Soldiers had been sent there with military carts, carrying provisions and surgical appliances, with orders to lend their aid in the work of relief. They found it almost impossible to make their way through the deep fine dust, and the tales of horror and heroism they had to tell resembled those that must of old have been borne to Rome by the fleeing inhabitants of Pompeii.

Efforts were made to remove the children and old persons in the carts, but when these had gone a few hundred feet it was found that, although there were four horses harnessed to each vehicle, they could not pull their loads through the ashes. This caused a panic among the children, who expected to be buried in the incessant fall from the volcano, and they fled in all directions in the darkness and blinding rain. Searching parties went after them, but in spite of continuous shouting and calling no trace was found of the little ones, and numbers of the children were undoubtedly smothered by the ashes and sand.

Many of the inhabitants had been buried in the ruins of their houses, and the scenes when the victims were unearthed were often piteous and terrible. The positions of the bodies showed that the victims had died while in a state of great terror, the faces being convulsed with fear.