Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/409

ATENA AND ITS NEIGHBOURH00D. the chancel, and the roof of it and of the south transept fallen inwards. The horizontal direction of wave-path deduced from the thrown quoin, and from the average of five sets of fissures in the church, was 165° 30’ E. of north, and the angle of emergence 47° 30’. The angle of emergence given by thrown quoins in three other buildings (dwelling-houses), of much worse masonry, however, and therefore capable of less exact determination, was only 39° 30’. Lower down upon the eastern slope of the town a large heavily built range of building, with front walls to the narrow street 3$1⁄2$ feet in thickness, running nearly east and west, shows fissures of two inches wide, on the level of the first floor above ground, which indicate a wave-path not far from north and south, 177° 50′ E., the nearest approximation. One of these in the soffit of the arch, over a "portone" leading to a "vicinello" is shown in Sketch Fig. 190, and gave a path exactly north to south. A wall of old and little coherent masonry, has had six feet in height of its upper part thrown off, parting horizontally along, at 38 feet from the base. The mass of material has fallen at an average distance of 20 feet from the base, towards the south, and a point or two towards the west. The angle of emergence deduced from this (the horizontal velocity as at Polla) is between 45° and 50°, dependent upon the constant adopted for the adherence of the mortar and masonry at the base of separation. The result sufficiently corroborates those above given from more certain data.

The difference of effect of the same shock, upon well and ill-constructed buildings, is forcibly shown here. The square campanile of the church stands nearly isolated, its north and south side walls being nearly parallel with the axial