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Show GOES CDASTTNG DOWRTHE HILL City of "Butte Is Indulging In Startling Pranks. t Buildings Are Cracked From One Side to the Other. Butte, Mont., Oct. 11 The staitiing fact has become evident that for several sev-eral weeks a large porti-m if the city of Butte has been sKding down hill. The evidence of it is seen mi a number of large buildings and residences including in-cluding the county court imuve and the residence of United States Senator W. A. Clark, which have h. en cracked and fissuwd from one side to the other. Geologists who have investigated the phenomenon express the .ipinion that the buildings damaged are located on a seam of rock or earth along which a i slide, separation or cleavage taking place. The evidence of the slide is seen from the county court hmise, which is located on West Granite street, about half way up the long hill upon the slope of which the city is built, and from that point two blocks south and west to near the western limits of the citv. Walls of Houses Cracked. The heavy brick inside walls of the court house have cracked from top to bottom. The handsome residence of Senator Clark, situated a block and a half further west, has been fissured clear through the building from east to west, and on the west side fr6m the roof through three stories down to the ground, at the bottom the fissure being over an inch wide, as if the southern portion of the house had followed fol-lowed the slide, while the north half remained solid. The stucco work and decorative moulding on the inside clear through the house from one side to the other is similarly fissured. The First Presbyterian church, a block south on Broadway, is also cracked by the sliding movement of the earth and several brick residences to the west likewise, all happening within the last few weeks. As there has been no min'ing- under that portion of the city, the movement cannot be satisfactorily satisfac-torily accounted for. |
