Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/195

134 limestones. At between five and six miles from Muro, still going N.W., I remark traces of the great dislocation, still retaining (on the large scale) the same general N.W. and S.E. direction. I pass on the west great beds of yellow grey sandstone, soft, mouldering, and crumbly, and inclined downwards to the valley bottom at the east side of the stream; and on them limestone has rested more or less conformably, with their beds of clay or marls interposed.

The limestone has slid in immense masses, upon the subjacent rockways, greased by these clays when wetted, and becoming dislocated, now lies in enormous slabs and masses, some of them blocks of 60 and 80 feet long, and 10 or 15 feet thick, half buried in the clays and slimy detritus, and gravel, all over the slope, for about a mile and a half up and down the valley, by nearly a mile wide of the slope, whose average angle may be about 12° or 14°, with a much steeper talus where it approaches the river at the bottom (Sketch No. 341.)

Zannoni's map, and still more the others, are all astray in this region, which is left quite a terra incognita.

We now begin the ascent of Monte Cerreto, the last ridge separating this valley from that of Laviano. At the highest point of our path the barometer reads 27·15 inches, thermo. 30° Fahr. at 11·40 Naples mean time, and the reduced level is 2645·2 feet above the sea. A keen north wind blows over the ridge, and is bitingly cold. Last night it froze hard at Muro, down even to the level of the torrent. We have the yellow-grey sandstone, all the way over the ridge, and a long way down, into the new valley to the