The Great Galveston Disaster / Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of Death; Terrible Sufferings of the Survivors; Vandals Plundering Bodies of the Dead; Wonderful Exhibitions of Popular Sympathy; Millions of Dollars Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers

by Paul Lester

A GREAT BREAKWATER.

“It was no accidental selection that caused Galveston to be built as it was upon a low island whose approach from the sea offered no harbor to ships and to whose low, sandy shores the products of the State of which she is the metropolis came only by artificial and difficult channels. The sweeping curves of the Gulf of Mexico reach its northern apex at or near this point, and it is there that the ships seeking the nearest approach to the cotton fields of Texas came, while the bay itself is as nearly as possible the average centre of industrial life in the State. The bay was never a harbor. To those who are familiar with the Jersey coast the situation of Galveston is easily presented.

“Just as part of the land has reached out into the sea and swinging around in different directions the points came in touch and raised a breakwater which, gathering sand and pebbles, became the beach at distances of four to ten miles from the mainland, leaving interior bays, with shallow inlets connecting them with the ocean, Galveston island was formed.