Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/258

208 smaller arch as in dotted lines Fig. 114. The building, consisting of four lofty storeys, and nearly eighty feet in height, I found had been fissured from settlements for a length of time; but the shock had been sufficient to shake downwards the central mass of the wall between $$c$$ and $$c$$, and to widen all the old fissures, which were now three-quarters of an inch wide—those $$c$$ and $$c$$ widest at top, $$\mathrm{B}$$ widest at bottom—evidencing clearly the nature of their production.

This, I found, was considered the most formidable example of injury to buildings occurring in or around Naples.

In no case, except at the Observatory, was I able to remark an original fissure in any well-built and sound structure.

The actual range of movement at Naples must have been small and far from violent. The amount of alarm produced generally by the shock was, however, sufficiently great to cause almost the whole population of the city to spend the remainder of the night of the 16th December in the open air, in carriages, around large fires in the streets, &c. The principal source of alarm described by most persons was from the creaking and straining noises of the timber work of the heavy floors and roofs, and the rattling of the windows and doors. A large portion of the population spent the succeeding night of the 17th December also in the open air, or in parading the public places. It was manifest, however, that much of this on both nights arose from the excitement and newsmongering tendencies