But slight attention was paid to the report, brought in by horsemen from San Bernardino on February 4th, that an earthquake had occurred there in the morning, until Captain Tom Seeley returned with the _Senator_ to San Pedro and told about a seismic disturbance at sea, during which he struck the wildest storm off Point Concepción, in all his sea-faring experience. Sailors were then better all-round seamen than now; yet there was greater superstition in Jack Tar's mind, and such a storm made a deep impression upon his imagination. I have alluded to the dependence of Los Angeles on the outside world, no better evidence of which, perhaps, can be cited than that on the twenty-second of February, George W. Chapin & Company of San Francisco advertised here to furnish servants and other help to anyone in the Southland. About the same time, San Bernardino parties, wishing to bore a little artesian well, had to send to the Northern metropolis for the necessary machinery. In October, 1860, as I have intimated, Phineas Banning took A. F. Hinchman into partnership, the firm being known as Banning & Hinchman, and they seemed to prosper; but on February 12th, 1862, the public was surprised at the announcement of the firm's dissolution. Banning continued as proprietor, and Hinchman became Banning's Los Angeles agent. Although cattle-raising was the mainstay of Southern California for many years, and gold-mining never played a very important part here, Wells Fargo & Co., during the spring, frequently shipped thousands of dollars' worth of gold at a time, gathered from Santa Anita, San Gabriel and San Fernando _placers_, while probably an equally large amount was forwarded out through other channels. I have already pointed to the clever foresight shown by Abel Stearns when he built the Arcadia Block and profited by the unhappy experience of others, with rain that flooded their property; but I have not stated that in elevating his new building considerably above the grade of the street, somewhat regardless of the rights of others, he caused the surplus water to run off into neighboring streets and buildings. Following the great storm of 1861-62, the City sued Stearns for damages, but he won his case. More than that, the overflow was a Godsend to him, for it induced a number of people to move from Mellus's Row to Arcadia Block at a time when the owner of vast ranches and some of the best town property was already feeling the pinch of the alternate dry and over-wet seasons. The fact is, as I shall soon make clear, that before Stearns had seen the end of two or three successive dry seasons yet to come, he was temporarily bankrupt and embarrassed to the utmost. By April, the walls and roof for the little Protestant Church at Temple and New High streets had been built, and there the matter rested for two years, when the structure, on which the taxes were unpaid, was advertised for sale.