ean by the flames and the steel
hulks of buildings and pipes and shafts and spires were dropped into a
molten mass of debris like so much melted wax.

The steady booming of the artillery and the roar of the dynamite above
the howl and cracking of the flames continued with monotonous
regularity. Such noises had been bombarding the ears of the
panic-stricken people since the earthquake of forty-eight hours
before. They ceased to hear the sound and rush pell-mell, drowning
their senses in a bedlam of their own creation. There seemed to be an
irresistible power behind the flames that even the desperately heroic
measures being taken at Van Ness avenue could not stay.

Hundreds of police, regiments of soldiers, and scores of volunteers
were sent into the doomed district to inform the people that their
homes were about to be blown up, and to warn them to flee. They
heroically responded to the demand of law, and went bravely on their
way trudging painfully over the pavements with the little they could
get together.

Every available wagon that could be found was pressed into service to
transport the powder from the various arsenals to the scene of the
proposed destruction.

Then for hours the bursting, rending sounds of explosions filled the
air. At 9 o'clock block after block of residences had been leveled to
the ground, but the fire was eating closer and closer.

Then the explosives gave out. Even the powder in the government
arsenals was exhausted long before noon. From that hour the flames
raged practically unhindered.

Lieut. Charles C. Pulis, commanding the Twenty-fourth company of light
artillery, was blown up by a charge of dynamite at Sixth and Jessie
streets and fatally injured. He was taken to the military hospital at
the Presidio. He suffered a fractured skull and several bones broken
and internal injuries.

Lieut. Pulis placed a heavy charge of dynamite in a building on Sixth
street. The fuse was imperfect and did not ignite the charge as soon
as was expected. Pulis went to the building to relight it and the
charge exploded while he was in the building.

The deceased officer was a graduate of the artillery school at
Fortress Monroe, Va. He was 30 years of age.

The effectiveness of dynamite was proved on the fourth and last day of
the conflagration, when the flames were finally checked by the use of
that explosive.

Three heroes saved San Francisco--what was left of it. They were the
dynamite squad tha