Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/405

Rh limestone, very soft, friable, and filled with disseminated fine white sand, in many places, particularly along the east flank of the Vallone. The hill sides everywhere present strong evidences of denudation, down to within three or four hundred feet of the level of the plain. Their summits and flanks are all swept almost bare, and the great deposits of detrital material above the plain, are only found in hollows, where it was entrapped, or in steep banks not elevated far above it, and now rapidly eroding by torrents. Almost all the scattered buildings that I pass along the plain, going southward, present indications of a general wave-path from north to south, varying some points east or west of that. On the east side of the great military road, however, about a mile from Polla, are some isolated buildings, not more than 150 feet above the plain, yet upon the solid limestone, which present decided east and west characteristics of wave-path—one especially, a nearly new building, having a wall of about 50 feet in length running north and south, and connected with others nowhere but at its extreme ends, by two transverse, or east and west walls. About 7 feet in height is thrown off the top of the north and south wall for its whole length, and thrown towards the west and south, while the east and west, or end walls, are merely fissured slightly. The original height of the fallen wall was about 35 feet, its thickness 2 feet, and the mortar was not yet indurated. The debris had rolled down a slope of 1 in 6, and much of it was 20 feet from the base of the wall, and hence did not admit of any calculation as to angle of emergence.

It was obvious that this was some local disturbance connected with the rocky range behind (to the east), but VOL. I