Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/260

210 The late Dr. Lardner was residing with his family at the Hôtel des Iles Britanniques, in Chiaja, and was at the time in a "salon" upon the third floor. His impressions were of a larger amount of oscillation, and with more or less of undulation. He has recorded them (with, perhaps, a little excess of colouring) in a letter published in the Times of 29th December, 1857, under date 19th December. He obligingly went with me to the "salon" at the hotel, wherein we found a large and ponderous chandelier hanging, of which he had observed the swing on the night of shock. He set it again in movement in the same direction and to the same extent.

This chandelier weighed 190 lbs. avoirdupois, hung (to the lowest point) 8 feet 9 inches from the ceiling, and by trial made 20$1⁄2$ double oscillations per minute.

According to Dr. Lardner, it commenced to swing in an arc of about 24 inches chord, and in one plane, the azimuth of which I found to bear 13° 0' E. of N., the Point of Pausillipo bearing 130° W. of N. from the front windows of the room. This vibration rapidly became elliptical, the major axis diminishing from 24 inches until it became about 12 inches; when the lamp continuing to vibrate as an ellipto-conic pendulum, was stopped by Dr. L., as he stated, both to appease the alarm of his family and to enable him to observe the effect of a renewed shock. The time by his watch was 10$h$ 15' Naples mean time, but he could not guarantee that the watch was perfectly right, though a good one.

His sensation of the first movement was of a short, jarring, horizontal oscillation, that made all doors and windows rattle, and the floors and furniture creak. This