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buildings on the “made ground” of embankments and landfills. The 1868
earthquake killed thirty people, the first deaths by earthquake the young city
had known.
26
The 1868 disaster would rival 1906 for sheer violence in the
memories of older residents, though no fires ensued to complete the work
of destruction. even in 1868, though, the dominant tone of the city's press
remained vigorous optimism: “There was nothing of despair, discourage-
ment, or even doubt of the future to be seen on the countenances of our
citizens, but everywhere a fixed determination to repair losses and do bet-
ter work than before.” The paper reported that only buildings on “made
ground” were damaged, “and nine-tenths of it was to old structures.” The
report concluded that “this earthquake demonstrates the proposition that,
with proper care in the construction of our buildings, San Francisco is as
safe a place to live as any on the Continent.”
27
not everyone who lived through the San Francisco earthquake of 1868
was reassured by such reports. One of the city's more prominent business-
men called for an investigation. The committee he appointed has since be-
come famous for its failure to reach conclusions of any kind. it has even
been accused of sabotage. More plausible is that the committee refused to
be shaken in its opinion that the earthquake risk in San Francisco was mini-
mal. Most of the members had arrived in California well after the start of
the gold rush. none but Trask had previously studied earthquakes, and only
the mining engineer Thomas Rowlandson could claim so elevated a cre-
dential as fellowship of the Geological Society of London. Rowlandson was
dropped from the committee as a result of a dispute with the chairman, but
he went on to publish a
Treatise on Earthquake Dangers, Causes and Palliatives
.
This treatise is one of the few sources to shed light on seismological thought
in California at the time.
Since Rowlandson had been denied access to the observations collected
by the committee, he was free to rely completely on his own memories
of the quake. He recounted his experience in excruciating detail. “Owing
to indisposition,” he was in bed at his home north of the Pajaro River,
“a position better calculated to remark the course of the two chief shocks
than the bulk of people at midday.” Moreover, his wife was “reclining on
the bed in an opposite direction . . . her head pointing near due east, mine
nearly due west,” thus perfectly situated as a source of “corroboration.”
While their bodies served to measure the direction of the waves, their con-
versation—“which was not hurried” and which Rowlandson paraphrased
with particularly unhurried pedantry—served to measure the duration.
This scene perfectly served Rowlandson's purpose of “domesticating” the
earthquake threat. Where one might expect to find death and destruction,
