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Branner's team resorted to canvassing the affected areas on foot. they
found that people were often more willing to broach the subject of tem-
blors in person. After a quake in the Santa Cruz Mountains in late 1914,
Carl Beal noted that “only about twenty observations and notes were sent
to the Seismological Society,” likely because of the low population in the
mountainous region of highest intensity. “the writer therefore spent four
days in the field, and gathered from the people themselves most of the in-
formation contained in this brief account.” One “interesting and valuable
contribution to the subject” came from a young woman at Stanford who
was phoning a friend in San Francisco: the friend said she would have to
hang up, there had been an earthquake; it was only after a pause that the
woman at Stanford exclaimed, “Here it is now!”
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In January 1915, Beal
spent nine days collecting information on a quake in Santa Barbara County.
the locals were mainly ranchers, “who cooperated with the writer in the
most courteous and efficient manner.” He also interviewed fellow passen-
gers during his train ride south, and contacted others via “the long-distance
telephone,” since some of the mountain roads were impassable in winter.
Beal's published report cited witnesses' statements in detail, noting cases of
dizziness, fainting, and nervousness; he noted effects on animals, “peculiar
things” such as the starting of a stopped clock, and the fact that “near Santa
Rita all the cream was spilled off the milk in a number of pans on a large
table.”
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When a severe quake struck southwestern California the following
June, Beal knew what he had to do: “It was impossible to get trustworthy in-
formation in any way except by going into the district affected and gathering
it directly from those who experienced the disturbance”—even though Beal
would have to rely on the military governor to give “sufficient guarantees of
safety to permit the writer to travel through the northern part of Lower Cali-
fornia.”
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Beal's adventures resulted in a preliminary fault map of Southern
California in the spring of 1915.
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In February 1920, Los Angeles entered a period of heightened seismic
activity. Over the following eight months, more than one hundred shocks,
mostly of low intensity, were recorded in the city. In June a severe earth-
quake struck Inglewood, ten miles to the south; on 16 July a series of shocks
caused minor injuries and light damage to buildings in Los Angeles's busi-
ness district. “It has been many years since Los Angeles was subjected to
earthquakes of as high an intensity,” remarked Stephen taber, a visiting
geologist from the University of South Carolina who had trained with
Branner. “People rushed from the buildings after each shock; many women
fainted and some had hysteria. Business was practically at a standstill after
the afternoon shocks, and many stores and offices closed for the day.”
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