Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/508

410 here, viz., from 105° to 165° E. of north. I have not taken a mean, but a choice, of those fissures whose direction appeared least likely to have been influenced by curvature (as in the great round towers) or other disturbing conditions. The fissures in the great towers of 80 feet in height or thereabouts, were open $2 1⁄2$ inches at the top. The walls were very thick, and such that this width, is a rude indication of the amplitude (horizontal) of the wave here.

The Chiesa, della Santa Dominica della Rosario, has its axial line 120° E. of north, or not far from cardinal: it is about 160 feet long and 50 feet wide, with a brick semi-cylindrical vaulted roof, 40 feet to the soffit, which, with the walls, are heavily fissured: the mean of seven pairs of these, gives a general wave-path of 155° E. of north, and an emergence from the north of 13° 30′, the extreme limits being 10° and 17°. In this building there is evidence also in the vault fissures, of a subordinate shock, nearly at right angles to the main one.

On altars, both at the north and south sides of the church, I found wood gilded candlesticks, that had been thrown out of plumb. Those on the north side had been thrown towards the N. W. at various angles, and still leaned against the back wall or shelf of the altar. They were high up and out of reach. Those on the south of the church, I found now in their usual places, but the Sacristan informed me, that all the wood candlesticks at that side, had been thrown quite off the altar, and were found scattered about the floor, and had been since replaced.

These are decisive as to direction of the wave here, viz., from a point W. of north towards the south. The candlesticks at the north side, thrown by the first semiphase of the wave, were limited in motion, by the wall against which