Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/121

80 westward, the lofty ridge that I am mounting and have to cross to reach Avigliano, consists, towards its upper part, of the upper limestones, and there are limestone peaks behind me, at 8 to 10 miles to the south and S.E.

Near the summit of the ridge of Monte Foj di Potenza, I pass some gigantic calcareous breccia rock, very similar lithologically, to the breccia wherever I have met it hitherto; but here, the nodules were almost absolutely spherical, and from 20 inches up to even 5 feet diameter, a size to which some that I measured attained. Nothing distant is visible. I have been enveloped the whole way, in dense fog and hoar frost, and, what is remarkable, not with a calm atmosphere, but with a driving north wind. The crystals of hoar frost driven before it, accrete upon the windward side, of every stubble stalk, and branch of brushwood, and stand off in horizontal lines of white ice, in a very singular manner. (Sketch No. 316.) It is intensely cold, yet the water in pools, &c., thawed upon the ground by the sun of the morning, is not yet frozen. The thermometer marks 27° Fahr. at 4·0 p.m. There is a continual light sort of clinking sound, borne upon the sighing wind, from the breaking off of these icicles from the branches of the savage-looking pine forests, that now and then show like dark spectres, through the rack and hoar fog.

The barometer reads 26·34 inches at the highest point, and the reduced level shows that I am 3414·4 feet above the sea and 827·5 feet above the city of Potenza.

Not far from the commencement of the ascent, I passed, upon the west side of my route, the debouchure of a tributary of the torrent of the Aritello, which comes down from the higher steeps, and joins the Vasento below Potenza.