Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/495

Rh earth near the road. I could not spare time to visit either, and commenced the ascent towards Ovedone, the mules creeping up, by stony traverses, along the N. E. side of the Fiume Imperatore, a torrent falling into the Calore, on its right bank. The section of the mountain range crossed, which separates the valley of the Calore, from that of the Moglia and Agri, and the general features of its geology, so far as I could observe them along my mule tracks, and thence on to and beyond Montemurro, are given in the section, Diagram, No. 241, Fig. 1.

After three hours' ascent, the form and features of the surrounding amphitheatre of mountains, by which the Vallone of Diano is shut in southward, became well displayed. To the south-west, stretching away above two miles, the Bosco della Cerzeta, is beneath me. The little town of Casalnovo, which is said to have suffered but little, is just visible beyond it, and high above, at some ten miles away, the gigantic Monte Cocuzzo, and further west Monte Rotundo, with Monte Cervaro due south, both of massive grandeur in outline, rise above innumerable lower peaks and hills, and shut in the view. I am 3,000 feet above the sea, but still these lofty summits subtend a considerable visual angle above my horizon. We are here upon the southern edge of the region, of actually ruined and overthrown towns, the meizoseismal, as reference to the Map, B, will show, all those further to the south being merely fissured, more or less severely. And from this elevation, it is easy to see and understand the physical features of the country, that have produced this sudden reduction of effect, by the prodigious loss of vis vivâ, that the wave of shock coming south must have sustained, by the abrupt lowering