Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/517



Sarconi, where little could be learned, and pushed on by the valley of the Moglia, through about two miles of fine oak forest for Saponara.

Having recrossed the Sciavra, I paused upon the S. E. slope of a low hill, south of Saponara, and within half a mile of what was a few weeks since, a town of six thousand inhabitants, now a shapeless heap of ruin.

To the west, on the recent ruins of a Capuchin convent, under Il Monte, and to the east, on the opposite bank of the Sciavra, on the piano, in the fork between it and the Agri, are the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Grumentum.

The low hill, on which I am, like all those hereabouts, is of ill-compacted limestone, in beds nearly horizontal, dipping here 10° W., and much covered with deep alluvium. These must be reposing perfectly unconformably, against the limestone beds, of which the lofty and steep conoidal hill upon which Saponara stood, is composed.

These run through the mass of this hill, tilted to within 15° of vertical, and in a direction, generally, of a few degrees to the west of north and south. Rh