Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/423

Rh The long axis of the house, has a direction 20° W. of north. The room occupied by the Sotto Intendente with his family on the 16th December, is a nearly square one, on the first floor (i.e., one over the ground floor). They had not gone to rest, and he was first alarmed by a short, sharp rattling, with a jumping vertical movement of about half an inch, of a large white metal chocolatière, that stood upon a marble-topped table at a, touching both the south and west walls. At the same instant he heard the "Rombo," which continued during the entire time of the shock. It was not very loud, but very terrible, and "seemed to make the floor and the whole house to tremble"—a hoarse and grating rumble. Before he could have reckoned twenty he thought, the great shock came, a distinct undulation, which several times swayed everything back and forwards, and lifted up and dropped down simultaneously, the horizontal movement having by much the greater range.

As far as he could judge by his own perceptions, the range of horizontal motion did not exceed half a palm (3 or 4 inches). The movements did not instantly cease, after these great oscillations, the total number of which he could not be certain of—he thought they did not exceed four or six—but all was quiet after (as he supposed) about half a minute, when they all rushed out of the house. He never himself, lost his presence of mind; on the contrary, he said that the minutest circumstances of movement, &c., that occurred in the room, from the instant when the chocolatière began to give tongue, seemed to stereotype themselves, upon his observation and memory.

A number of glazed lithographs, in fiat wood frames, each hung from a single nail, upon the north and east walls of