e.
He stated that if at any time an earthquake wave of only moderate
violence should come in from the oceanic basin in sufficient strength
to jar the coastal mountain masses at a period when the San Joaquin
Valley was bearing its maximum weight of water the conditions would be
ripe for simultaneous shocks from the southwest and from the
southeast. In such a condition, while neither of the shocks by itself
would be capable of doing any great amount of damage to buildings in
San Francisco, the combination of two distinct sets of waves might
prove too much for any work of man to withstand.

In spite of the declarations of some scientists that there can be no
possible connection between the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the
earthquake of San Francisco, others are inclined to view certain facts
in regard to recent seismic and volcanic activity as, to say the
least, suggestive.

There is one very remarkable circumstance in regard to all this
activity. All the places mentioned--Formosa, Southern Italy, Caucasia
and the Canary Islands--lie within a belt bounded by lines a little
north of the fortieth parallel and a little south of the thirtieth
parallel. San Francisco is just south of the fortieth parallel, while
Naples is just north of it. The latitude of Calabria, where the
terrible earthquakes occurred last year, is the same as that of the
territory affected by yesterday's earthquake in the United States.

There is another coincidence, which may be only a coincidence, but
which is also suggestive. The last previous great eruption of Vesuvius
was in 1872, and the same year saw the last previous earthquake in
California which caused loss of life.

Camille Flammarion expressed the opinion that the earthquake at San
Francisco and the eruption at Vesuvius are directly connected. He also
sees a connection between the renewed activity of Popocatepetl,
Mexico's well-known volcano, and the disturbance on the Western coast.
He says that, though the surface of the earth is apparently calm,
"there is no real equilibrium in the strata of the earth," and that
the extreme lateral pressure which is still forming mountains and
volcanoes along the Western coast brought about an explosion of gases
and the movement of superheated steam several miles below San
Francisco, resulting in an earthquake.

Another theory is that the earth in revolving is flattening at the
poles and swelling at the equator, and the strata beneath the surface
are