The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire | Page 4

When the weakness and the folly and the sin of men bring woe upon
other men, there are plenty of texts for the preacher and no scarcity of
earnest preachers. But here is a vast and awful catastrophe that befell
from an act of Nature apparently no more extraordinary than the
shrinkage of hot metal in the process of cooling. The consequences are
terrifying in this case because they involve the habitations of half a
million people; but, no doubt, the process goes on somewhere within

the earth almost continuously, and it no more involves the theory of
malignant Nature than that of an angry God.
If we contemplate it, possibly we may be helped to a profitable
estimate of our own relative insignificance. We think, with some notion
of our importance, of the thousand million men who live upon the earth;
but they are a mere handful of animate atoms in comparison with the
surface, to say nothing of the solid contents, of the globe itself.
We are fond of boasting in this latter day of man's marvelous success in
subduing the forces of Nature; and, while we are in the midst of
exultation over our victories, Nature tumbles the rocks about
somewhere within the bowels of the earth, and we have to learn the old
lesson that our triumphs have not penetrated farther than to the very
outermost rim of the realms of Nature.
A few weak, almost helpless, creatures, we millions of men stand upon
the deck of a great ship, which goes rolling through space that is itself
incomprehensible, and usually we are so busy with our paltry ambitions,
our transgressions, our righteous labors, our prides and hopes and
entanglements that we forget where we are and what is our destiny. A
direct interposition from a Superior Power, even if it be hurtful to the
body, might be required to persuade us to stop and consider and take
anew our bearings, so that we may comprehend in some larger degree
our precise relations to things. The wisest men have been the most
ready to recognize the beneficence of the discipline of affliction. If
there were no sorrow, we should be likely to find the school of life
unprofitable.
For one thing, the school wherein sorrow is a part of the discipline is
that in which is developed human sympathy, one of the finest and most
ennobling manifestations of the Love which is, in its essence, divine. In
human life there is much that is ignoble, and the race has almost
contemptible weakness and insignificance in comparison with the
physical forces of the universe.
But man is superior to all these forces in his possession of the power of
affection; and in almost the lowest and basest of the race this power, if

latent and half lost, may be found and evoked by the spectacle of the
suffering of a fellow-creature.
The human family looks on with pity while the homeless and hungry
and impoverished Californians endure pangs. Wherever the news went,
by the swift processes of electricity, there men and women, some of
them, perhaps, hardly knowing where California is, were sorry and
willing and eager to help. There are quarrels within the family
sometimes, when nation wars with nation, and all love seems to have
vanished; but the world is, in truth, akin. "God hath made of one blood
all the nations of the earth," and the blood "tells" when suffering
comes.
THE PUBLISHERS.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
SAN FRANCISCO AND ITS TERRIFIC EARTHQUAKE
CHAPTER II.
THE DEMON OF FIRE INVADES THE STRICKEN CITY
CHAPTER III.
FIGHTING FLAMES WITH DYNAMITE
CHAPTER IV.
THE REIGN OF DESTRUCTION AND DEVASTATION
CHAPTER V.
THE PANIC FLIGHT OF A HOMELESS HOST

CHAPTER VI.
FACING FAMINE AND PRAYING FOR RELIEF
CHAPTER VII.
THE FRIGHTFUL LOSS OF LIFE AND WEALTH
CHAPTER VIII.
WONDERFUL RECORD OF THRILLING ESCAPES
CHAPTER IX.
DISASTER SPREADS OVER THE GOLDEN STATE
CHAPTER X.
ALL AMERICA AND CANADA TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER XI.
THE SAN FRANCISCO OF THE PAST
CHAPTER XII.
LIFE IN THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC
CHAPTER XIII.
PLANS TO REBUILD SAN FRANCISCO
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EARTHQUAKE WAVE FELT AROUND THE WORLD
CHAPTER XV.

VESUVIUS DEVASTATES THE REGION OF NAPLES
CHAPTER XVI.
THE GREAT LISBON AND CALABRIAN EARTHQUAKES
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CHARLESTON AND OTHER EARTHQUAKES OF THE
UNITED STATES
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE VOLCANO AND THE EARTHQUAKE, EARTH'S DEMONS
OF DESTRUCTION
CHAPTER XIX.
THE THEORIES OF VOLCANIC AND EARTHQUAKE ACTION
CHAPTER XX.
THE ACTIVE VOLCANOES OF THE EARTH
CHAPTER XXI.
THE FAMOUS VESUVIUS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF
POMPEII
CHAPTER XXII.
ERUPTIONS OF VESUVIUS, ETNA AND STROMBOLI
CHAPTER XXIII.
SKAPTER JOKULL AND HECLA, THE GREAT ICELANDIC
VOLCANOES

CHAPTER XXIV.
VOLCANOES OF THE PHILIPPINES AND OTHER PACIFIC
ISLANDS
CHAPTER XXV.
THE WONDERFUL HAWAIIAN CRATERS AND KILAUEA'S
LAKE OF FIRE
CHAPTER XXVI.
POPOCATEPETL