Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/204

Rh The ancient fissures at Valva, showed a wave-path that had produced them, not far from east and west, direction indeterminate.

A mile below Valva, at II Ponte Vecchio, on the level of the bed of the Salaris, the barometer reads 29·77 inches, thermo. 45° Fahr., at 1·30 Naples mean time; and the reduced level gives 309 feet above the sea. The course of the stream, from the Rio Tempate its head water, at Laviano, to II Ponte Vecchio, is about eleven geographical miles, and the fall in this distance is 701 feet, or nearly 64 feet per mile.

I arrive at Oliveto. On entering the town, which, as usual, stands on an eminence, with an old ruined stronghold above it, I pass a large old monastery of "Zoccollante," and in the east end, of the semi-octagonal apse of the church, observe an ancient fissure, still open fully four inches at top, and forty feet in height: it indicates a west and east wave-path, in the shock that produced it. There are, however, no signs of "lesioni" by the recent shock. All the towns along this valley, seem to have been preserved from the violence of the shock, as felt further south, by having been cut off, from the more violently shaken country by the deep cleft and long continuous valley of the river, bearing the successive names from Muro downwards, of the Giacojio, the Platano, the Bianco, and the Tanagro, a united length of valley, not less than 26 geographical miles, before their confluence with the Salaris.

The Padrone, with whom I dined here, gave the same account of the earthquake, as those at Laviano and Valva, and stated, that the usual impression at Oliveto was, that the direction of the great shock was from the S.E. to N.W.