Then came the season of the awful silence, the hush of awe, when mankind held its breath and things stood still and humanity gazed on havoc and hideous

horror and then, out of the silence, out of toppled buildings, ruined palaces, and dismal hovels, came the besom of flame. With hideous roar it advanced, this terrible thing, this red and yellow monster, and its firey arms outstretched, it reached the seven hills and it hissed and roared and with infernal intensity, it consumed, eat, and devoured. Here it creeped along, a fawning thing, a fascinating though hideous snake and there it advanced boldly, compelling obedience by the sudden smash and relentless roar and rack of flame. One moment it subsided the next it rose and flung itself upon all that it could consume in its mad fury. It followed the ground, it scaled the heights, it burned through steel and rock and then licked up wood as though it were straw.

And before it was driven the long line of people with their grimy and ashen faces, lighted only by the flush of fire, heavy laden and dogged-an endless procession of tired apathetic people, going-God knows where! Anywhere, it mattered not to the human tide that flowed over the hills. The trudging feet, weary with the strife, unresisting and fleeing through instinct alone.

Occasionally a halt was made and then the fire crept closer and closer and the burdens were resumed and the march taken up again. Out into green fields, through gardens, where roses looked up in sarcasm, where the daisy smiled in deri sion.

Here the burden was again dropped and the living slept among the dead. Fam ilies camped in the cemeteries, children slept in tombs and the quick sought the protection of the dead. The sun shines over all and the skies are blue, save where the great mushroom shaped cloud hovers over the doomed city. Three hundred thousand people are without bed or board, there hundred thousand people listen to the distant thunder of dynamite. There is no water and the flames must be stayed by counter destruction.

On the outskirts of the fire, soldiers are fighting the advancing flames and protecting the fugitives. Here and there a ghoul is shot. Here and there may be seen some

stooping form gathering valuable from the body of the dead or dying. There is a sharp command, a shot, and justice has been done.

Night in the Ruined Metropolis Pompeii, Rome, Carthage, Chicago and San Francisco! Blackened ruins, pinnacled rocks, fearsome threatening shapes, silent testimonials of an awful visitation.

Three-fourths of the area of what was once the business center of the city has been destroyed. From East street to Octavia the black blight spreads and from Broadway to Twentieth is the track of dread desolation. The great centers of trade are gone, obliterated are the proud monuments reared by rich men, the palaces are down in the dust and a grim, grizly skeleton is all that remains of a once great city.

The glittering lights of the Western metropolis, so often likened to Paris, are no more, its streets are gone, its landmarks obliterated. Not a voice is heard in its deserted streets, it is as silent as the grave. Man wrought for fifty years to ereate what was destroyed in less than that many hours.

The Star of Hope Above the Gloom of

Death.

San Francisco will rise again. It will /rear itself upon its hills and it will reach out and beckon to the world a resistless welcome. From out of the gloom of death there gleams the star of hope. Carthage never rose again, Rome is glorious only in its decay but the indomitable American spirit rebuilt Chicago; Baltimore, phoenixlike, sprang from its ashes.

San Francisco, visited by earthquake and fire, will rise once more chastened and, more beautiful than before, in a cleansed majesty, in robes of white, it will turn to a magnificent future.

Lisbon was visited with destruction in the year 1756 entaling a loss of 20,000 lives. The loss of life was not so great in San Francisco and the earthquake shock was very evidently not so tremendous. Lisbon was rebuilt and has never again suffered from a severe visitation. The earthquake that shook Lisbon was probably the greatest in area that the world has ever known. It reached from the southern shores of Finland to the West Indies and it rocked the houses of Boston town. And yet Lis