Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/199

138 north and south walls, 0·53 inch, in 10 feet, and 0·36 in the same length, in the east and west walls, indicate a wave-path of 32° to 34° W. of north, and from the S.E. The general slope of the large fissures here and in other parts of the edifice, (which is built of soft, badly put together, rubble limestone chiefly,) gives an angle of emergence from 21° to 28° 30'.

The present owner of the house, was just going to bed at the time of the shock, and he brings me to his bedroom, and placing himself in the same position he then occupied, points out to me the exact direction in which he states he felt the second or undulatory movement, swaying him forward and back. The head of his bed stood against a north and south wall to the east, and he was standing with his back to the bed, or looking north, undressing himself at the north side of his bed, when he felt first the strong "sussultatorio" shock that seemed to lift him with the floor and throw him forward, at the same moment, and directly after he felt, several times repeated, an "oscillatorio" movement, that swayed him forward and back, to the N.N.W. and S.S.E., and the direction of which I found, as pointed out by him, was 20° W. of north. Allowing for the impossibility of exactly observing and pointing out afterwards the direction of movement, this corroborates the determination from fissures. The priests at the church, however, declared their opinion to be that the movement had been exactly from south to north. They seemed, however, amongst the many here having no clear notions as to points of the compass. Both they and the persons at the Palazzo Carmine, as well as some of the people in the town, all agreed that the first movement was "sussultatorio" (they were not conscious of a