Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/307

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THE EARTHQUAKE RIFT OF 1906
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Earthquake Rift. Morrill's Orchard, Santa Cruz county.

roof of the tunnel. On the hill above the tunnel is Morrill's fruit ranch. The earthquake ripped its way through the orchards, shifting the rows of trees six to eight feet and treating roads and fences in the same reckless fashion. The large hospitable Morrill farmhouse stood partly over the track and was split in two and utterly ruined. Farther on at Skylands, on the ridge of the mountains, Fern Gulch was filled with wreckage; Inverness Road, near Olema, Marin County. redwood trees four and five feet through, two or three hundred years old, were snapped off like whip-lashes. The rift crossed Hinckley's Gulch at right angles. This is a narrow gorge about a hundred feet deep, in which stood the large Loma Prieta sawmill. The gorge was filled by landslips thrown from both sides. The mill was completely buried, with nine mill hands, and a redwood tree over a hundred feet high was set erect and unhurt over the place where the mill stood. The bodies of six men were recovered. One of these, the foreman, was found erect, smothered in mud, hut standing with extended arms and limbs in the act of running from the mill. With him. equally erect and in the act of running, was the body of a Siberian mastiff. Their position marked the meeting point of the two walls of