Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/363

Rh and had not yet been again secured. Being restrained by the wires from rotating at the top, i.e., confined to vibrate in a plane not very widely departing from transverse to the length of the wires, they had not formed conical cavities at their butts, but such as would have been produced by the pole, working forward and back, in a line not quite transverse to the length of wire, but, so far as its restraint would permit, also towards the south, so that on the whole their movement, coincided with the evidence of wave-path here given by everything else.

It was doubtless this swaying drag upon the wire (it is but a single one) produced by the poles that broke the former, and so cut off all telegraphic intelligence, between the great earthquake district and Naples, for above forty-eight hours, during which the most intense anxiety was felt in the capital, as to the fate that had probably overwhelmed the provinces.

Upon the highest summit of the pass is erected a little roadside shrine—the Capella della Madonna della Pieta, which was riven and fissured in a very remarkable manner, and only stood, by help of some pious props, that since the earthquake had been strutted against its tottering back and ends. It is shown in Sketch No. 159, made on the spot, and in Photog. No. 160 (Coll. Roy. Soc.), taken some weeks afterwards.

The plane of the front face of the "Tenementa," is north 45° W., and the fractures clearly indicated a wave-path having an azimuth direction of north 157° 30′ W., or from the N. N. E., and having a very steep angle of emergence. The little structure was built, of coarse limestone rubble, plastered all over, and the cohesion of the