Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/469

Rh and nearly destroyed. Photog. No. 229 (Coll. Roy. Soc.) shows this, and the great vault fissure at the end.

In the Priors' Square, one of the most richly decorated portions of the monastery, the whole of the buildings are in a falling state, the vaulting of the surrounding arcade being split on each side of the square, the north and south sides, most formidably, and next to these the east side, the front pilasters and the story which they carry above them, all leaning out, and heavily fissured, as in Photogs. No. 231 and No. 232 (Coll. Roy. Soc.)

Entering the great square to the north-east of the last, which in magnitude rather seems the "place d'armes" of some immense "caserne," than the court of a monastery, the groined arcades are similarly fractured; the pilasters and story above, bulging out into the court, are seen from within, and from without, in the line of one of the galleries in Photogs. No. 233 (Coll. Roy. Soc.), and No. 234.

To the westward of the great square, in the private garden of the "Priure," amid much other destruction, a limestone vase has been thrown, from the summit of the south pier of the gate at the west side of the garden, as seen in Photog. No. 230 (Coll. Roy. Soc ), and in Figs. 1, 5, and 6, (Diagram No. 240), the direction of throw 122° E. of north.

The blocks of stone of the pier itself, have been thrown or shoved upon each other, eastward about half an inch, and the whole of both piers more or less dislocated.

I have thus briefly recapitulated the objects to be specially referred to, for the information they convey. The vast mass of buildings, however, presented almost an unvarying spectacle of destruction—few of the walls or roofs actually prostrate, but everywhere fissured, dislocated, and tottering;