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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/106

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102
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

origins the Inyo and San Francisco of those whose causative faults reached the surface of the ground.

The general character of California earthquakes was so well known that when the dispatches told of a severe shock at San Francisco no American geologist had a moment's doubt that it was caused by a fault movement, and among those specially conversant with the structure of the affected district attention was immediately directed to several fault lines, with the expectation that one or more of them would show the marks of fresh dislocation. Mr. Ransome prepared a prophetic article

Fig. 3. This Fence, Previously Continuous and Straight, was broken and parted by the earthquake fault, the offset being 812 feet. The line of fault, concealed by the grass, crosses the ground from left to right, touching both the dissevered ends of the fence.

in which he indicated the lines most likely to be concerned.Nat. Geog. Mag., Vol. 17. 1906, pp. 280-296. Professor Branner stated in an interview that he had immediately made a forecast of the locality of the origin and that it had proved to be correct, and Mr. Fairbanks went at once to a zone of 'earthquake topography' with which he was already acquainted, and found a fresh rupture in the expected place.