Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/421

Rh east and west, and all were thrown to the south, without any twist. The people about, said they had been all built plumb, and were so, before the shock, an interesting proof, that a very light body may be overturned by shock, equally with one of great density, the inertia of motion being exactly proportionate to the weight.

.—This town, although of Roman, if not of still earlier origin, and showing remains of much antiquity about the old Castello, seen above the town, is nearly all now of modern building; and upon the whole far better built, than any town I have yet seen in the Vallone. It extends for nearly a mile and a quarter, along the slope of the hill-side, the buildings rising above each other, and presenting very generally their greatest length in north and south directions, or parallel to the hill-side, which is nearly continuous, and unbroken by any deep lateral gorges, all along the east side of the Vallone. Not a single stream of any magnitude falls into the Calore from this, but all its feeders from the other or western side. This town is the seat of government of the province, and contains many large official and other structures. All are more or less fissured, but the actually demolished buildings are few. This seems to have arisen less from diminished energy of the shock here, than from the substantial character of the buildings, and from the fact, that almost all of them presented their long dimensions to the line of shock, as may be seen in Photog. No. 198 (Coll. Roy. Soc.) of the town locking from the N. W. The general position of the buildings in plan, as they wound along the hill-side, is along a curve, as in Fig. 199 (Sketch, Coll. Roy. Soc.). There is an elevated little valley, at the back or