During the afternoon of the 18th and until 3 o'clock P. M. of the 19th the scraping sound of dragging trunks on the sidewalks was continual. All sorts of methods for conveying valuables were resorted to,--chairs on casters, baby carriages, wheelbarrows,--but the trunk-dragging was the most common. It was almost impossible to get a wagon of any kind. The object of the people was to get to the vacant lots at North Beach and to the Presidio grounds. Shortly after the calamity the most absurd stories were in circulation. It was stated that a man came out of the wreck of the Palace Hotel with his pockets filled with human fingers and ears taken from the dead inmates for the rings and earrings. As no one was injured in the hotel, it was wholly imaginative. A man near the Park met another who related the shocking occurrence of two men having been hanged on a tree in sight, and not a long way off; the man hastened to the spot and found no crowd, nor men hanging. My son was engaged with his automobile all the forenoon in work connected with the temporary hospital at the Mechanics' Pavilion. At about 11 A. M. it was found necessary to remove the patients, which was finished by noon. When the last one was taken out, he went in and made a search, and found that all had been taken away. Still the report was believed by many that a hundred or more perished there by the fire. A few personal experiences have come to me, and as I can verify them, I have here inserted them. One of our men who roomed near the engine-house on California Street, packed his trunk and dragged it downstairs, and started along the street for a place of safety until he came to a pile of brick, when he stopped and had just time to lay the brick all around it and run away. The next day as soon as the heat would permit, he went for his trunk and found it slightly roasted, but the contents uninjured. A lady who does not wish her name mentioned relates a very interesting and thrilling story of her earthquake experience. She says she had permitted her servant to go away for the night, and at five o'clock she remembered that the milkcan had not been placed out as usual, so at that hour she concluded to get up and do it herself. She did so and before she could return to her bed, the shock came and the chimney was thrown over, falling on the roof and crashed through that and the ceiling of the chamber and on to the bed, which she had left only a few minutes before. Alfred Boles, roadmaster of the California Street Cable R. R. Co., was working on the cables all of the previous night, and up to about 4:30 on the morning of the 18th. Therefore, that night at their home in the Richmond District, the daughter slept with her mother. The earthquake shook the chimney down, which fell through the roof and ceiling of her room, and covered the bed with brick and mortar. Had she been in it she certainly would have been killed.