The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 17, 1906, Page 18

18 \ THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JUNE 17, 196 SAN FRANCISCO CALL/ JORN P. SPRECKELS .Proprictor | JOHN MCNAUGHT...................... Manager, EDITORIAL ROOMS AKD BUSINESS OFFICE. . . CALL BUILDING Corner Third znd Market Streets, San Francisee. 1651 FILLMORE ST. ... West 956 ..... 1016 BROADWAY ...Oakiand 1083 UPT® BFFICE.. Phene OAKLAND OFFICE. . Phone. . SUNDAY. RS ....JUNE 17, 1906 CULTURE AND TRADE. Rev. Rufus A. White, in an address before the inating class of the Armour Institute of Tech- T Chicago Friday night, spoke on the rela- dture to business and industry. * Where ¢ ) he said, **th is the life of in- nd commerce. Culture and the pursuit of the are the stimnlus and foundation of com- The ax ve hard-headed dealer in hams will be apt to lift his evebrows at that. and to conclude at xt vear some other than the Rev. Rufus A. White deliver the address before the Armc Institute The ham man could scarcely be trapped into admitting that he himself is possessed f an imagination of a high order, but without natign he would never have been heard of in he busingss world he admits But he is the same is true of all, be writers of philosophy. e manuseript of his first work e priiter, and then erossed the not home when the tre- i-moving explosion that would fol- m was shaking his native s very thounghtful of Schopenhauer, waited Yo In five years ham man is that witl ss other than his own. ght be at g for the explosion. like tl of the books had been sold. rised at the slowness of a presum- world, but confident of the place I > had made for himself in the ranks of phil- osophers, Schopenhauver fairly hugged his success. 3ut the ham man would not eall such a flat financial Neither would have Schopen- built fortune to6 be a mark of But the imagination that was the f Schopenhauer’s enlture is not unlike prompts the ham man’s ven- in his way is a poet, but poets of dif- Is and products. h above his unimaginative fellows ndards, purposes, idea : relation of conditions to events, te philosophy nor gain sucecess from isco has had a half-century’s object les- N We 1 el that the pioneers failed to fact that San Francisco was to be a ity, that San Franeisco real property was one day to be fabulously valuable. But where the ew did see this and profited by it the thousands 3 of those who did secure Market- id so by accident; toek it ad debts and the like. Spanish war a marked advance in San isco prope: values was to be looked for. But again compa fi tively few profited exeept from drove the city out to Fillmore quick to see. the imaginative, if you ke. secured Fillmore-street leases: the unimagina- tered the ad line. Within a few months » 20.000 men are now engaged in the work of | ity fully three times that number will They will be paid off weekly and v millions of dollars will be put into circula- °d. h Saturday night. What this means to Y 1id merchants does not reqguire on of a Schopenhauner or of a success- ham dealer to picture. But comparatively few grasping the opportunity thus offered. These will profit enormonsly. The rest of the community will marvel at and envy their ““good Iuek.”” To Dr. White’s statement that culture and the pursuit of the ethical are the stimulus and founda- tion of commerce and industry, we would add, for they develop the imaginative in man which is back of all intelligent success, be it suecess in the writing of philosophy and poetry, or snceess in the selling of hams. KEEP THE CITY CLEAN. Delay in the cleaning up of debris on the main streets of the city will give a sethack to pro values, and the time for temporizing with delin- quents passed. Where buildings are being erected it is diffieult to keep the street and side- walk clear, but where nothing is being done in the building line property-owmers should be compelled to clear away the piles of bricks and rubbish so tl the business center of the town ean resume its normal traffie. Too muech patience has been observed with those who have made slop gutters of the streets and lit- tered the sidewalks with decayed vegetable matter and all kinds of dirt. The police foree has not very much to do at present and if the Board of Public Works will say the word the police‘can courteously but firmly insist that offenders against publie health cease to make a cesspool of every corner sewer and a swill tub of the street gutters. Whiie we are boiling water and taking other pre- cautions to keep the health of the city good, we are overlooking the very important necessity of ridding the unburned as well as the burned distriet of trash. Piles of sand, masses of old bricks, bundles of greasy paper are scattered everywhere. There is no ex- cuse for this, for all men of San Francisco know that it is of great moment to the city to present as attractive an appearance as possible at this time. Outsiders will not interest themselves in us as long as they think that we take no interest in ourselves. A GERMAN ESTIMATE. has I A magazine published in Leipsic, ‘‘Die Garten- laube,”” in the course of several articles deseriptive of San Francisco, in which this city is called *“‘the New York of the Pacific Coast,”’ comments as fol- lows upon our recent catastrophe: ““Everybody will be struck with a painful feeling that it should be San Francisco, this wonderful city, which fell a sacrifice to the elements. She was not, like many other American cities, only sober and practical, but she was beautiful: southern splendor enveloped her and the harsh repose of her northern !lines served only to make her more picturesque. Here the rich people had their dwelling places, and " here pulsed-a life kaleidoscopic and veriegated in character.”” ; Other European periodicals than ‘‘Die Garten- laube’” ecall attention to San Franciseo. in which “brilliant,”” *“‘beautiful,”” “*gay’’ and other adjec- tives are freely employed to express the foreign estimate of this city. The disaster has brought out | to us the faet, of which we were hefore but vaguely | cognizant, that all Christendom considers us the gayest, most lighthearted and least mercenary of all the American ecities. | It is a good reputation to have and it is to be | hoped we will live up to it in the new San Francisco which we are now building. And there can be no doubt that we shall. Although our buildings have been destroyed the same people are still here, and it is the quality of the people, not the buildings, that gives the character to the town. We shall still be |the same gay, brilliant and lighthearted San Fran- | cisco as before the fire, with the sole difference that our material city itself will be more beautiful than ithv old one. 1(!I‘I'Y OFFICIALS NEED BETTER QUARTERS. | | The demand made by the Century Club that {the Mayor’s office vacate the quarters which it has |occupied at Century Hall since the fire brings the |fact squarely before the people that the\ officials |of the city are badly scattered and poorly provided for. After the fire the Assessor, Auditor, Tax Col- lector and City Attorney secured quarters on Sac- ramento street, near Fillmore; the Supervisors, Coroner, Election Commission and Justices’ Clerk | at Grove and Laguna streets: the Board of Health at a schoolhouse on Turk street: the Distriet Attor- ney, Sheriff and County Cierk at California and Webster streets; the Treasurer at the James Flood building and the Police Department on Sutter street, near Gough. The other county officers are cattered from one end of the unburned district [to the other. The quarters in which the officials find them- selves are generally-inadequate to the needs of their offices. Scattered as the several departments are, not only are the officials and their deputies put to extra labor and the city to incredsed expense, but citizens who have business with the city government suffer great loss of time, inconvenience and annoyance by being required to tramp from one office to an- |other. Now the Century Cluh, wants the hall that Mayor Schmitz has been oecupying since the fire, and the public that has just succeeded in getting |the Mayor’s office located will in all probability {have to get accustomed to some other loeality. | At best several years must elapse before the new ‘('iti\' Hall will be ready for its tenants. Until then the city officials must eontinue in makeshift quar- | ters, but the ineonvenience that this means for both |officials and public should be reduced to the mini- |mum. If possible the several departments should {be housed in one building, or at least in one lo- |cality. Then, too. the quarters should be secured | for the period during which the new: City Hall will be in course of construction, that all unnecessary expense of moving and the confusion that will be jattendant upon it may be avoided. Suitable quar- ters once secured, they should be properly fitted up ]ln meet the requirements of the departments, DING PERMITS, The Board of Public Works should issue building | permits as rapidly as possible, so that the restora- tion of the city may proceed with the utmost rapidity while the summer season is with us. We can do twiee as much during the next six months BUIL building operations more or less. No proerastina- tion of the sort displayed by those officials re- sponsible for the chimney fiasco should be allowed in the issnance of these building permits. When- ever a property-owner calls for a permit and can show that he is‘legally entitled to it it should be passed over to him on the spot. Any delay on the part of the board or its employes should be avoided. Any clerk neglecting to issue a permit on proper demand should be reported and his case promptly attended to. This is no time for putting applicants for permits off with the stale and irritating answer, ‘‘tomorrow.’’ This is not a complaint nor a eriticism, but an admonition. We want to get to work and rush things along while the season is in our favor. Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today. The observance of this wise old adage has saved many a eareful and alert man fhis fortune. Furthermore, a stitch in {ime saves nine. One present is worth a dozen futures. The debris is now being removed. Next comes the permit to build. The first step has been fairly prompt. Let the second be equally so. as if there is to be a race between the wooden shack and the noble steel edifice. We do not want the former except as a temporary makeshift. It is necessary and convenient now, but will be in the way and perhaps seriously so by and by: Distriet Attorney Jerome states that it is as hard for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle as for a rich man to enter:a State prison. But it would be difficult to make Millionaires Griffith and Bradbury, present address San Quentin, see the joke of the witticism. The detectives who shadowed the boodle Senators at Sacramento last winter want pay for their ser- vices, but they considerately ask only $8.80 for keeping track of Wright, who, jt will be remem- bered. passed from under the shadow. Jimmy Britt'is advertised throughout the East as “‘The Pride of the Pacifie.”” This is something like a reminder of San Francisco before the fire. Santa Clara County will hnry_est- a $5,000,000 crop this season, which spells prosperity which fire and earthquake could not overcome. Baltimore has had another disastfous fire. If it were not bad taste we would offer to *‘shake.”’ as later on when frequent rains will interfere with | | | Each year when the revort of the State Insurance Commissioner is pub- lished, much attention is given the ap- parent gains of those engaged in un- derwriting fire risks. The reports show, for example, that for the twenty years ending December 31, 1904, years in which no great fires visited the State, the insurance companies paid back as losses to their California patrons about $44.70 for every $100 which they collected as premiums. The tendency on the part of those who pay the premiums is to look upon the unaccounted for $55.30 as profit for the companies. This is an extreme view which fails to take into consideration the neces- sary expenses which the companies in- | cur in conducting their business. The | exact ratio of expenses to premiums | collected cannot, of course, be had;| some place it as high as 60 per cent, | others as low as 50. The first estimate | would make the companies doing busi- ness in Califérnia pay out an average | of $104.80 in losses and expenses for every $100 collected as premiums, a net | loss of $4.80, or, on business involving | premiums amounting to approximately | $10,000,000 annually, a loss of $480.000 a year. The second and lower esti- mate, 50 per cent, would make them pay out of every $100 collected as premiums $94.80, leaving them $5.20 profit, or $520,000 where the premiums amounted to $10,000,000 a vear, as has been in the case in California for sev- | eral years. In 1904, for example, the latest figures at hand, the people of the State paid premiums to the amount of $10,104.083.49. But whichever of the estimates is approximately correct, the figures show that the operating machinery of fire in- surance is tremendously expensive, 80 expensive, indeed. that even in years of small losses, leaving aside all ques- tion of dividends, practically nothing is left to meet the ever-threatening emergency of overwhelming disaster such as has come upon San Francisco. In fact, all the premiums paid in the whole State of California for the twenty years ending December 31, 1904, amounting to $125,170,851.70, applied to the payment of the losses incurred by this one fire, would fall short by $50,- 000,000 of meeting the liabilities of the underwriters, On such a showing it is readily seen that as fire insurance is at present conducted, no company, or combination of companies, can main- tain a reserve to meet an emergency that any moment, in*any part of the world where insurance is known, may come upon it. How traue this is is shown by a state- ment made to the writer by a well-in- formed insurance agent. “As a general | thing,” he said, “the San Francisco fire | wiped out all the surplus, all the fire loss reserve and one-half of the capital stock of all the companies doing busi- ness in America.” On this statement practically every | Twelve years ago today the begin- ter of the water front of San Fran- cisco drew attention through the ferry depot clock. It was not the great clock of the tall tower that went spin- | ning to the bad when the earthquake | shook its weights and cogs, but the! little old timepiece that had for nearly | thirty years pointed the time for the| bay travelers. Today anbther epoch of history is: |about to be added to the long and in-| It looks | teresting story of our docks, and when the lumber industry. Father Time again perches aloft he| ! will have given the starter for a stren- | uous race against adversity. Adver-| sity will have lost out long before it | shall have become time to replace the | rehabilitated clock that is to resume its place in the rebuilt tower. Between the days of the old clock and those of the new much has hap- pened in the evolution of our trade by water. When the workmen wielded the {hammer and crowbar on the rotten |timbers of the low, ill-smelling ferry depot of 1894 the sailing vessel was in its prime. The easily manned, many-derricked steamer was not fre- quently seen in harbor except when a {tramp from the South or Central American coast dropped into the chan- nel to cause consternation in the Pa- cific Mail offices. Schooners often in- vaded the Mail line territory, espe- clally on the Central Americam coast, and the thrée-masted Falcon was a thorn in Mr. Center's side. South Sea island trafic was the source of much interesting comment with such men as “Billy” Hart and the old-time water- front reporters, and it was for about four years that this source of roman- | tic sea yarns at its greatest out- ut. ¢ G | ‘When the old ferry clock came down, | s00n after standard time was given the Pacific Coast from the National Ob- servatory sat Washington, Farson, Leach & Co. of New York had negoti- ated for the purchase of the depot State engineers had plans for ulldi:; ‘prepared depot. East stree! of jare made upon contracts A NICE HOT WEATHER JOB The Uncertain Basis of Fire Insurance. BY FRANKLIN HICHBORN. fire irsurance policy held in America was affected by the San Francisco iire, leaving policy-holders from one end of the country to the other more or less in a state of uncertainty. Not only is this true of American policy-holders, but of thousands and tens of thousands of policy-holders in foreign lands. Such interests are too universal, too enormous for their soundness to de- pend upon the integrity of a trunk water main of a single city. Nor was San Francisco the only city in the world liable at any moment to be placed help- less before a great conflagration be- cause of a pursting water main. Only a week ago Cincinnati was for a whole night shut off from its water supply under much the same conditions as pre- vailed here. The starting of several fires, the coming up of a high wind and the tremendous fire losses suffered {in San Francisco with the attending | | Hability of underwriters would have lem, the people of New Zealand are The Gov- | . unstable basis does the institution of |ernment of New Zealand does not alm been duplicated at Cincinnati. On such modern fire insurance rest. From the very nature of fire insur- ance it can never be figured on a scientific basis as is life insurance. In life insurance the premiums - exacted are not the result of guess work, but are based on exact data. Of 1000 in- sured the companies know with start- ling exactness the number that will die the first year that their policies run, and so on until the death of the last of the 1000. The element of risk, and therefore of gamble, is largely re- moved in life insurance. But in fire insurance it is all risk, and therefore all gamble. After a great fire prem- iums go up, and in the years that fol- low, in the heat of competition, go down again. But there is no correct basis of advance and no scientific rea- son why they should go down. Fire insurance as at present conducted is a guess and a gamble, and a guess and | a gamble so long as it remains on its present basis it must continue to be. But with the development of modern business methods fire Insurance has become a commercial’ necessity. It enters into practically all business transactions. Stocks of goods are sold kept insured against fire loss; that pledged property be kept insured. loans the It us, in spite of ourselves. The depositor who never thinks of insurance is as much interested in the soundness of the insurance of the ranch house 500 miles away upon which the banker has loaned the depositor’s money as is the farmer or the banker. This being the case, neither depositor, banker or farmer, nor the insurance companies themselves, for that matter, can afford to leave the stability of the fire in- surance 8f the world depending upon a trunk water main of some city per- haps across the continent and maybe But how can fire insurance be placed on a better basis? How can assurance When the Old ek Cine, own. - BY JAMES S. TYLER. would be a complete change in the . |ning of a great change in the charac- ! construction of wharves and bulk- heads, and the completion of the sea- wall was promised at a near date. It would seem that the growth of San Ffancisco's shipping d&d from the day when the last supporting beam of the old depot was struck away, carrying with it the handless faces of the old-time clock. Trade with the Orient, that had lagged too much for our good, began to look up, and the growth of the city steadily encouraged The Coast Sea- men's strike, the formation of the Shipowners' Association.and the strug- gle between the two factions that fol- lowed did not deter San Francisco from pursuing the policy of trade ex- pansion. % The strike ended and San Francisco again leaped forward to the great | trade battle. The ferry depot grew and grew, and north and south of it new docks were built and yet there was the repeated complaint, “Not enough dock room; ships have to wait in the stream too long.” 1 can see Dan Has- kell from the pilot-house of the Fear- less and Captains Gray and Harvey from the little rickety balcony of the | Red Stack office looking sour as a Sal- vador lemon because so mapy craft were tugging at their anchor ins in midbay while two big fleets of tugs were chafing their fenders to pieces alongside the wharves. The new clock went up in the new ferry tower and operated in a happy- go-lucky sort of way because the winds dallied with its long thin hands as they would with the fans of a windmill. The clockmaker corrected this, and before Dewey sailed into Ma- nila Bay and destroyed the B[T:hh fleet our old friend, Captain Dunleavy of the fully up at the tower and say, “Well, it's !lgfi something was doing on the front. * It's getting dull” ~In truth there had been somewhat of a period of depression just prior to bonds which the State had 'm,vm:;-;l; the war, but San Francisco—always ] 3 their | pro: 4 off of fneome in a light that would 3 reflect rous—regarded a slight falling dom Im;h like long, harbor police, used to look wist- | WASHINGTCN STAR. | be given the insured that regardless of | what may happen, whether a dozen | San Franciecog burn, the value of his lpoll(‘y will not” be impaired? And how sarily | ever-possible contingency will not be | exacted of him? These are not ques- tions to be decided offhand. But they are of tremendous importance to every | property-holder, be he living im San | Francisco or New York. These who | have compared the haphazard life in- | surance of a half century ago with the | scientific” life insurance of today, life! insurance so exactly figured that ome| in| history failed to shake it, do not de-| of the greatest financial scandals spair of the ingenuity of man to place fire insurance, difficalt as the ques- | tions involved are, on as firm a besis. As one possible solution of the prob- | trying state fire insurance. to drive private insurance companies {from the fleld. or even to unduly re- duce rates. It does, however, write fire insurance at what it considers fair premiums, leaving private companies to cut rates, if they like, below wghat |is deemed reasonable. The Government |office is, of course, relieved of the | heavy expense of commissions to | agents, which is so important a factor !in swelling the expense accounts of {private companies, an expense, by the way, due_largely to keen competition between Qe compantes. The Govern- ment office, too, returns to the insured half the profits of the business. re- serving the other half to strengthen the office. The Government writes no Insurance outside New Zealand. In the event of a disaster such as has come | upon San Francisco the loss, so far as the loss of the state Insurance office is concerned, would be borne by the whole country. It is a question | whether a private institution able to | stand such a loss can grow up within |a state, certainly not the institution lof fire insurance as at present con- | ducted. On the other hand, a pelicy underwritten by the Government of | with the understanding that they be |New Zealand has all the backing be- hind it of a Government bond. Nor is it at all probable that any fire or series of fires in New Zealand will ever | |enters into the daily life of each of |bankrupt the Government or even seri- ously inconvenience it. There is, of course, much that may be said against Government fire insur- | ance; thousands in New Zealand prefer | to insure in private companies and are {doing so; private companies continue to do a thriving business in the island; |as has been said, New Zealand is only | experimenting. But if it can point a| | way out of* the uncertainties of an in- | | stitution in which the interests of every other man one passes on the !street are directly or._ indirectly | wrapped up, the island government , will have earned the gratitude of the | business world. \ years ago, mourned by scores of friends) adjusted his glasses, and in his typically calm. unimpassioned way | watched Jerry Dailey mark on the ex- change blackboard, “Dewey has sunk the Spanish fleet.” That was a great day in the history | of San Franciseo’s water front. There was a perceptible bustle. There seemed | to be something in the air that made us breathe of war—and of business. ‘We could sniff it, and some of us | sniffed it more than others and made | the money while the rest of us were ,paying more attention to ozone than | opportunity. San Francisco's trade became as un- menageable as an unruly colt. It went | by starts and plunges. It kicked over the traces and went wild in efforts to get a chance to control it. The Gov- |ernment dumped millions of dollars | into the coffers of local merchants, and | the entire Water Front Federation was ! required to handle the ‘merchandise | that was being hurried to the Philip- i pines. Transports were chartered, troops were sent out, and the commis: ' saries and quartermasters kept the | stores and factories busy. | Beyond the line of docks the city was {looming up big and strong. She w: | in the transitory shaking off her humble frame walls and looking about for steel and stom Big buildings | peered over the tops of low ones and seemed to looking with their win- had come all tHis great boem for the t. San Francisco was be- coming a metropolis and attracting the attention of the entire world. The Spanish war ended. but San Francisco marched on.s The restless- ness of her spirit was not soothed by the peace of nations. Her trade ex- panded to the remotest island of the seas, and ;?uu ~and enterprise walked with her hand and hand. - To be sure, we look today upon the ruins of our business district and we ieve over the loss of our landmarks. ut our harbor is still here, and our docks and our ships. Whe shall say that when we note the hour and min- ute in the ferry tower again it ‘will not be the beginning of b new era e can his premium be fixed so that if no | | great fire occur in a century unneces- | high rates to provide for an| dow eyes toward the West whence HE GAME, HE SAW, AN HE REPORTED. Casts Eye Over Straw- | berry Hill and Finds Hill Guilty Expert From Cincinnati " Declares It Gave Us the Shake. A scientific expert who was sent eut from Cincinnati to find out all he could about the disturbance of April 13 has returned to the Queen City and has made his “report.” It Is. indeed. & wonderful decument. The Cincinnati | Enquirer tells of it as follows: Mr. Oliver E. Conner Jr., who went as the represertative of local business vodies to investigate the San Francisco earthquake. has returned with the fol- lowing report: k “My recent visit to San Franeisco and investigation into the cause of the earthquake there confirms forcibly my | former idea as to the cause of that | great calamity. and permits me, from the simple and glaring facts noted and recorded. to more clearly present my deductlons. In Golden Gate Park. where thousands of Frisco people fled from thelr tottering dwellings, 1 found | the strongest evidence of an extinct volcano, in the crater of whick' is Stow Lake, whose waters at the time of dis- turbance showed = unusual activity. | The surface of this lake Is now gquiet | and looks as innocent as though its | only mission was to reflect the beauiful | fringe of tropical plants that surround lit. In the center of this lake stands | Strawberry Hill, named from its similarity in shape. This hill is un- deubtedly the solid core of an extinct volecano. The observatory that was located on its apex has been shattered | and destroyed. “Upon close examination of this hill may be seen cracks and fissures in all direction like the spokes of a wheel A spring that once existed on its slopes has disappeared. This is sufficient evi- dence to prove that the center or seat of disturbance was under Strawberry Hill. The crater lake that once existed on the top of Mt. Pelee was very im- fdocent looking for years. Fedrless people built an iron eross on the rim and raised enormous crops of fruit and grain on its hospitable slopes. There came a terrific explosion, the results of which are enly too well known. Had the explosion been sufficiently strong to have blown out the core in the center of Stow Lake the destruction of life in Frisco would have been the greatest ever recorded. THE CAUSES GIVEN. “I have formed the following con- clusions regarding the causes of vol- canic and seismic disturbances: Firs both have the same cause, and bot! | phenomena are caused by an eleetriecal explosion within the earth. One has |an exit for its expanded gases. the | other has not. The recent activity of | Vesuvius was watched by eminent scientists, and they report that great globes of electricity rolled out of the crater and exploded with great vio- lence. Pelee repeated the same pheno- mena. It belched out great volumes of | electricity that rolled down its slopes in all directions, carrying death and destruction in its wake. A great mass | of evidence has been accumnulated since | the destruction of Martinique, proving | | beyond any question or doubt that | thousands of the inhabitants were | electrocuted. | “We no longer believe that we live {on the surface of the earth. but within fit. It is no longer a globe of some | 8000 miles in diameter, but ome of about 25,000 miles. The ethers. gases and all invisible elements are now reckomed as part and parcel of the earth, and are subject to the same general laws. The phenomenon of thunderstorms and the retention of stored electricity in the clouds is am illustration of the cause of veolcanie and seismie disturbances. Each par- ticle of moisture found in a cloud acts as a miniature storage battery: the clouds surrounded by dry air are a { nen-conducting medium producing con- ditions best suited for the retentien of | electricity. When these minfature bat- teries become overcharged they burst into vivid lightning and its accompany- ing phenomenon, thunder, the concus sion of which causes the particles o moisture to combine and form ri This same phenomenon oeccurs withi the earth in certain localiti where } | i conditions are more favorable for the retention of electrical energies. A HUGE DYNAWO. “This earth, from its expansion and comtractiol chemical decomposition and reconstruction, produces enormous quantities of@electricity. In faect, the earth ig like a huge dynameo. Is it not reasonable to assume that there are localities where this electricity ae- cumulates in just such a manner as it collects in a rain cloud? There are many substances that will retain elee- tricity under certain conditions. These elements are found in the earth. and more especially in the immedi: ity of volcanoes. most generally surrounded by sulphur, a non-conducting medium. a substance | best suited for the retention of elece tricity. When this huge reserveoir be- comes overcharged we have an ex- plosion that bursts up nen-conducting mediums, such as lava, broken stone, etc. This reduces the vibrations of electricity down te that of heat, and we have the attending phenomena of melted rock and its incineration, vol- canic ash, etc. The same accumulation of electrical energies takes place in quake districts. The explosion within produces the sturbances felt above, The explosive force is semetimes suffi- cient to burst through. and we have the active volcane. From my point, view there will bée no serious | turbances near Frisco. for many years,. It will be some time, howev. before the melted rock and metals now in the fluid stdte under Frisco become suffi- ciently cooled and solidified to about a stable condition.