NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE eruption of Vesdvius has been followed by another and
far more appalling convulsion of Nature. News reached London on Wednesday afternoon that San Francisco had been devastated by earthquake. Further reports have only added to the magnitude and horror of the catastrophe, which has not merely wrecked San Francisco, but spread ruin through the towns on the Pacific slope within a radius of one hundred miles. Shocks were first felt in San Fran- cisco shortly after 5 a.m.; and in an incredibly short space of time the principal buildings in the commercial quarter, including public offices, banks, hotels, theatres, newspaper offices, and warehouses, had collapsed in ruins. To aggravate the calamity, fires broke out on all sides—gas escaping from the disconnected mains—the water mains burst, rendering the efforts of the firemen useless, and to check the progress of the conflagration houses were blown up wholesale by dynamite. Even so the flames spread into the residential quarters, and in twenty-four hours the ruin of the city was well-nigh complete.
