Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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astonishment with which we gazed at the ruin around us, and the sense of our own utter helplessness. Yet, real as these feelings were, they were so confused that it is difficult at the present time to reproduce them with sufficient accuracy to give them reality in the mind of the reader. The earthquake occurred in the morning at eighteen minutes past five o ' clock, as was attested for months afterward by the motionless hands of the great clock in the tower of the Ferry Building in San l ' rancisco. The shock was preceded by a dull, heavy rumbling, and was accompanied by a deafening roar. The greatest confusion ensued. Few persons who went through the earthquake have ever been able to give a uniformly clear description of the details attending the phenomenon. Those who lived in frame houses probably received the more violent shaking, but in the stone dormitories the situation of the rudely awakened sleepers was fraught with far more danger. In Encina Hall there was a terrific grinding of masonry, as of stone upon stone, for the entire height and width of the walls. The shaking of the building was so violent that it was difficult for one to keep one ' s feet, and several who Stanford Quad 1908 INTERIOR OF ENCINA

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Stanford Quad 1908 THE GATEWAY The Great Earthquake As when some great painter dips His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse. — Shelley ' s Revolt of Islam. Great calamities leave in the minds of those who experience them certain sensations of amazement and fear which are constantly recurring with every remembrance of the event. And as these sensations are more startling and more vivid than the sensations that we experience in every- day life, so are they more lasting and more nearly a repetition of our exact feelings when we were overwhelmed and bewildered by the great catastrophe. Thus the earthquake of the eighteenth of April, 1906, has left in our minds certain recollections which can never be effaced utterly, but will remain for years to come, rushing in upon us from time to time, even in the midst of the stress and excitement of a busy life. Only a few months ago, the newspaper dispatches describing the calamity that fell on Kingston, Jamaica, filled us with a startling sense of its reality. None of us will ever forget the nameless terror of the shock, the appalled 20

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Stanford Quad 1908 leaped from their beds at the first shock were thrown to the floor. Large fragments of plas- ter fell from the ceilings and walls, blinding and half stifling the occupants of the rooms. The ever-repeated crash of falling masonry added to the uproar. The great ornamental chimney, hurled to the roof by the shock, dashed itself through four stories to the base- ment, carrying with it three rooms with their five occupants. One of these men, Junius Robert Hanna, of Bradford, Pennsylvania, was instantly killed by the tons of stone under which he was buried ; the other four escaped without serious injury. Practically everyone in Encina rushed half clad from the building. Vet with all the fright which naturally took possession of everybody, there was no real panic, and the men, with some few exceptions, displayed remarkable coolness and judgment. Roble Hall, the building which was con- structed of concrete, reinforced by steel wires, would have been jjractically undamaged, save in broken window panes and plastering, had it not been for a chimney similiar to that at Encina, which fell in luuch the same way, carrying down the three rooms that lay in its ])atli. h ' ortunately the occupants escaped with- out any severe injury, although one girl who went to bed on the third floor awoke in the ])arlor. At the power house, the great historic chinmey which towered high above the sur- rounding roofs, fell, burying and killing the fireman, Otto Gerdes, who had remained at his post to turn off the electric power. The 22