Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/372

296 fallen in, and such portions of it as still indicate the direction of throw, prove it to have been from S. to N., at an angle downwards of 50° to 60° with the horizon. Two small and slender iron crosses, one on the top of the pediment over the west end, and the other on the belfry top, are bent over, the former to the north to about 15° from vertical, the latter to the south, about 25° from same. I found I could not reach these, to get the scantlings of the iron, &c., as measures of velocity; the ruins continuing to fall at unexpected intervals, and the height being considerable. The belfry cross, by the theodolite telescope micrometer, appears to be about 2$1⁄2$ feet high, and of iron, about 1$3⁄8$ $$\times$$ $3⁄8$ in. section, and is bent on the flat.

The church of the Madonna of Loretto was a solid Corinthian structure, still lower down, and in great part built of brick, with heavy semicircular arches, to the nave and aisles, and a heavy semicylindric roof; its axial line cardinal. As may be seen in Photog. No. 168, it is fissured down to its base, the fissures (some of which, of a regular and measurable class, may be observed under the altar-piece at the N. E. corner low down) all indicate a wave-path from north to south, and in direction about 160° 30′ W. of north, and an emergence of 50° to 60° with the horizon. The north flank wall, leans heavily out towards the north, as do all the large sashes still standing, high up in that wall. The main mass of the rubbish of the fallen roof, is in the inside of the church, and towards the north side of the floor. The shear or break of the roof vault also proves the direction of the force of fracture to have emerged from the north at a steep angle, as may be seen in the Photog. No. 168. On the right side near the pulpit, may be seen