Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/137

92 Nearly one third of it was destroyed in 1851; but many new and substantial buildings have arisen since. A good, substantial-looking house, of two solid stories, opposite the Locanda, which is nearly cardinal, is fissured in four places. It is insulated, and gives good indications, and shows a wave-path 45° 30' E. of north, and an emergence from the S.W. of about 16° or 16° 30'. The streets are desperately steep and tortuous, (Photog. No. 321,) as seen in the view of the town looking towards the highest summit of Vulture in the distance. The Aqua Francesca, a stream which flows through the town and supplies its fountains, is in the foreground. It falls into the Ofanto, to the S.E. of Vulture. The building high up upon the right, is a great monastery not far from Barielle.

It soon became obvious, as I examined the town, that every one of its separate knolls or crags of lava, had shaken in secondary directions of its own, dependent upon the path of the main wave and its own free-lying faces; and hence, I might have found here (without attention to this condition) evidence of wave-paths in every point of the compass. It afforded an excellent instance of the caution as to conditions, that an earthquake observer requires, ever to bear with him. The extremes that I found, were south to north, and 18° E. of north.

At the top of the town the Palazzo Catani, a large and lofty four-story building, well built, and with iron tye-bars inserted at each story (probably put in after the shock of 1851), has escaped without a visible shake or flaw.

Returning to the house I first observed, and remarking the position of its ground, I returned again to the east and N.E. of the town, and comparing the few indications of