Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/507

Rh five miles away. At the Locanda, situated in the higher part of the town, the barometer at 8:30, Naples time, 17th Feb. reads 27.05 inches, thermo. 51° Fahr.: it is 2696.7 feet above the sea. The highest point of the Colline on which the Castello is situated is about 200 feet above this, or nearly 2900 feet the summit.

In the new buildings in progress here, the causes of such facile destruction by shock as I have remarked, are patent; no thorough bond, thick and heavy walls of ill-constructed rubble, floor beams a yard apart, inserted only 9 inches into the walls, without "tossals" or wall-plates, want of all mutual connection between the walls, floors, and roof, and both the latter of prodigious weight.

The Chiesa Madre has its axial line nearly north and south, built of brick, with limestone pilasters, &c., and brick vaulted roof, about 160 feet by 45 feet wide and 60 feet high to the springing of the vault. The transepts are vaulted also. The arch is semicircular, and is fissured widely, down to the springing, and open an inch in places. The fissures in the walls, are fine and narrow, but give good indications; general direction of wave-path, from 140° to 145° E. of north, and the slope with vertical 10° to 12°, giving e = 11° from the N. W.

Nothing to indicate velocity. All around the church, are many ordinal buildings, fissured and partially thrown, and one large cardinal one, all of which indicated more or less distinctly, a wave-path from some point to the west of north to south; there were evidences, but obscure, of a minor and nearly orthogonal wave.

The Castello, consisting of heavy old massive masonry, much indurated, is severely fissured. General direction, 154° or 153° 30′ E. of north, but the extreme limits are very wide