ed to be those
of females, encompassed in that peculiar steel coop or cage which seems
to have been worn by the women of that period, were also found in
the upper stratum. Alexis von Puffer, in his admirable work on San
Francisco, accounts for the position of these unfortunate creatures
by asserting that the steel cage was originally the frame of a
parachute-like garment which distended the skirt, and in the submersion
of the city prevented them from sinking. "If anything," says Von Puffer,
"could have been wanting to add intensity to the horrible catastrophe
which took place as the waters first entered the city, it would have
been furnished in the forcible separation of the sexes at this trying
moment. Buoyed up by their peculiar garments, the female population
instantly ascended to the surface. As the drowning husband turned his
eyes above, what must have been his agony as he saw his wife shooting
upward, and knew that he was debarred the privilege of perishing with
her? To the lasting honor of the male inhabitants, be it said that but
few seemed to have availed themselves of their wives' superior levity.
Only one skeleton was found still grasping the ankles of another in
their upward journey to the surface."

For many years California had been subject to slight earthquakes, more
or less generally felt, but not of sufficient importance to awaken
anxiety or fear. Perhaps the absorbing nature of the San Franciscans'
pursuits of gold-getting, which metal seems to have been valuable in
those days, and actually used as a medium of currency, rendered the
inhabitants reckless of all other matters. Everything tends to show that
the calamity was totally unlooked for. We quote the graphic language of
Schwappelfurt:--

"The morning of the tremendous catastrophe probably dawned upon
the usual restless crowd of gold-getters intent upon their several
avocations. The streets were filled with the expanded figures of gayly
dressed women, acknowledging with coy glances the respectful salutations
of beaux as they gracefully raised their remarkable cylindrical
head-coverings, a model of which is still preserved in the Honolulu
Museum. The brokers had gathered at their respective temples. The
shopmen were exhibiting their goods. The idlers, or 'Bummers,'--a term
applied to designate an aristocratic, privileged class who enjoyed
immunities from labor, and from whom a majority of the rulers
are chosen,--were listlessly regarding the prome