Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/505

Rh would be impracticable. All these towns, and many others around them, had suffered severely.

At the margin of the Lago Maorno, the barometer marked 27.10 inches, thermo. 42° Fahr. at 3 P.M., and the surface of the lake I find to be 2526 feet above the sea, at Naples. Crossing the piano, or basin of the lake, we ascend again, cross the Serras, of Cerzuto and Pizzuto, and on the ridge of the latter gain the first view of Moliterno, and dimly discern through the rainy atmosphere, Sarconi, Spinosa, Viggiano, Marsico Vetico, and even Montemurro, all towns, nearly or quite destroyed. We now commence to descend, by the side of the highest fork of the Fiume Sciavra, which falls into the Agri, along the east flank of a wild and grand ravine, with the torrent in the bottom, which, in its now swollen state, seems to be sweeping bodily before it, masses of the beds, of red and yellow clays and marls, and calcareous detritus, that to a depth of 30 to 60 feet form its boundaries, and conceal the formations beneath the sloping plain, the Piano of St. Martine.

At the highest point I passed upon the Serra di Cerzuto, the barometer stood at 26.65 inches, thermo. 45° at 5$h$. 5$m$. P.M. Naples time. The height above the sea was 2994.4 feet.