The St. Francis Hotel, a sixteen-story structure, can be repaired at an
expenditure of about $400,000, its damage being almost wholly by fire.
The steel shell and the floors are intact. Although the building rocked
like a ship in a gale while the quake lasted, its foundations are
undamaged. Other steel buildings which are so little damaged as to admit
of repairs more or less extensive are the James Flood, the Union Trust,
the CALL building, the Mutual Savings Bank, the Crocker-Woolworth
building and the Postal building. All of these are modern buildings of
steel construction, from sixteen to twenty stories.

A peculiar feature of the effect of the earthquake on structures of this
kind is reported in the case of the Fairmount Hotel, a fourteen-story
structure. The first two stories of the Fairmount are found to be so
seriously damaged that they will have to be rebuilt, while the other
twelve stories are uninjured.

Various explanations are being made of the surprising resistance shown
by the skyscrapers. The great strength and binding power of the steel
frame, combined with a deep-seated foundation and great lightness as
compared with buildings of stone, are the main reasons given. The iron,
it is said, unlike stone, responded to the vibratory force and passed it
along to be expended in other directions, while brick or stone offered
a solid and impenetrable front, with the result that the seismic force
tended to expend itself by shaking the building to pieces.

Whether there is any scientific basis for the latter theory or not, it
seems reasonable enough, in view of the descriptions given us of the
manner in which the steel buildings received the shock. All things
considered, the modern steel building has afforded in the San Francisco
earthquake the most convincing evidence of its strength.