The branch of the United States mint on Fifth street and the new postoffice at Seventh and Mission streets were striking examples of the superiority of the workmanship put into federal buildings. The old mint building, surrounded by a wide space of pavement, was absolutely unharmed. Not even the few palm trees which stand on either side of its broad entrance were withered by the flames that devoured everything around it. The new postoffice building also was virtually undamaged by fire. The earthquake shock did some damage to the different entrances to the building; the walls were uninjured. Every window pane, of course, was gone, as they were in almost every building in town, but the government was able to resume postal business immediately. The Fairmont Hotel, while seriously damaged in the interior, was left intact as to the walls and the management offered space in the building to the various relief committees who desired to house the homeless or to store supplies in those parts of the building considered safe. One question that confronted the rebuilders was whether the city's level had sunk as a result of the earthquake. Parties sent out by City Engineer Thomas P. Woodward for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the city, as a whole, had sunk, reported that there was no general depression, though there were many spaces where there were bad depressions. The most notable depressions were on Valencia, from Nineteenth to Twentieth; lower Market, Howard and Seventeenth and Eighteenth; Van Ness, from Vallejo to Green, and on Folsom in the region of Seventeenth street. [Illustration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips. =SEEKING LOST FRIENDS.= San Francisco Call Register Bureau. Looking for names on cards.] [Illustration: Copyright 1906 by Tom M. Phillips. =VAN NESS AVENUE RESIDENCE.= All that was left of a fine residence.] [Illustration: =TENTING IN THE SQUARE.=] [Illustration: =ALAMEDA PARK.=] The southeast corner of the new postoffice building extended over an old swamp, and here there was a depression of fully four feet. The sinking was confined almost entirely to the lower parts of the city, and particularly to "made" ground. Mr. Woodward gave it as his opinion that there was no general depression of the city whatever. City Engineer Woodward was one of those who devised a general scheme for rebuilding the city, by which the new San Francisco was to be a city of magnificent buildings, terraces, boulevards, green parks and playgrounds and gardens. One prominent feature of Mr. Woodward's comprehensive scheme was the widening of Van Ness avenue into a magnificent boulevard. To this end he proposed the acquisition by the city through condemnation proceedings of all that choice residence property the full length of Van Ness avenue.