The high somber buildings, which are of red brick, have been added to and remodeled at intervals without any given plan, and thus they form an irregular mass, interspersed with paved courts and narrow cells.
San Quentin.
A large, square plot is devoted to grass and flowers and lends a cheering tone to the grim structures surrounding it. One of these, a tall edifice with a succession of iron doors opening on to small, long balconies, reached by narrow steps, is called the Tanks.
The average cell in this building is eight by twelve feet in dimensions. In each of these five men are stowed—one could not say accommodated for the narrow bunks placed in tiers, with a still narrower passageway between, vividly suggested the over-crowded lodging houses of Mulberry Bend, which Jacob Riis's perseverance eradicated.
In other buildings are cells, each of which is thirty by twenty-seven feet, which contain twenty-six men, and one cell, of thirty-six by twenty-one feet, lodges forty-eight convicts.
Point San Quentin, as Seen from Mt. Tamalpais.