Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/398

314 press (Fig. 184, Sketch, Coll. Roy. Soc.) It was 10 feet 6 inches high, 9 feet 6 inches long, and 2 feet 2 inches wide from front to rear. It was not thrown down by any east or west movement, but was shoved, by a north and south movement, along the beton floor upon its eight stumpy oaken feet, each 4 inches square (surface of contact with the floor), in a direction towards the south, 1$3⁄8$ inch from the north wall against which it abutted.

The owner informed me, that it had been quite full of household articles, pretty uniformly distributed on its shelves; that it had not been filled so as to be top-heavy, or unequally loaded; and they estimated the total weight at about 800 rotuli = 1552 lbs. avoir. A quantity of china which occupied the upper third in height of its two southern divisions, was all found broken and thrown into a heap, at the south end of the shelves. A low velocity horizontally, not exceeding 2 feet per second, would have sufficed to make this press slide that distance upon a smooth floor, which would be only a little above 3$1⁄2$ feet per second in the wave-path. It must therefore have been arrested by some inequality in the floor, or by its feet ploughing into the beton, and will give no certain result, except that the velocity was sufficient, to dash the contained china first north by the first phase, and then south by the second phase of the wave.

In one of the great drawing-rooms there stands still in situ, a very ponderous cabinet or chest of drawers of walnut (Fig. 186, Sketch Coll. Roy. Soc.), with its back against a wall running east and west, and free to fall to the south. It was quite full in every part with house linen, and estimated to weigh 400 rotuli = 776 lbs. avoir. (cabinet and contents). It rests on four irregularly-shaped feet formed by