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Many Beautiful Works of Art Wrecked or Destroyed
The Memorial museum at the Park was closed yesterday, and the approach
to it barred by ladders stretched across the broad pathway. The cement
path was littered with stucco shaken from the Egyptian facade, the doors
were padlocked and the huge bronze Dore vase some twelve feet high was
tilted over on its
foundation.
Alongside the museum a balustrade of stone was shaken to pieces. Part of
the brick wall and the zinc cornice on the south side of the museum were
thrown to the ground, breaking down two of the dragons blood trees and
carrying along two of the huge columns which were shattered into
fragments.
Part of the adjoining wall was cracked and shivered, pieces of it falling
out. The west walls also suffered. From the main building masses of bricks
fell through the skylights, and even the curators house did not escape,
stucco and bricks littering the ground around it.
A big block of granite lying on the ground outside the museum, being
exhibit 6950, was cracked across the middle. Some beautiful pillars of
Colton and Inyo marble, broken by falling, had been removed from the
museum and were lying outside with a pile of broken glass and other
debris.
Inside the museum is a sad wreck, except the back wing where the Alaskan
exhibits are. The art gallery is damaged, but the pictures are little hurt,
although a few of them will have to be reframed. Some of the mummies,
after surviving the trials and vissitudes of some 5,000 or 6,000 years, were
smashed into bits. The china room would make a collector or a careful
housewife weep. Many of the beautiful vases are ruined, and nearly all the
statuary was thrown down and broken. The show cases were generally
smashed and the work of cleaning up and estimating the damage, now
going on, is considerable.
Meanwhile the public is is not admitted to the building. The collection of
birds suffered little. Patrolman Phil Hering is on duty by day and M.
Denny, Company C, Fourteenth Infantry, under Captain T.W. Daily, is on
guard at night. About 2 oclock yesterday morning Denny shot five times at
a man who was prowling about the rear of the museum.
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