Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/216

Rh and east of the town; but there is nothing revealed above the surface of the sea, nor anything apparent, except difference of distance, to account for the difference in motion, there, and at Terracina, and the latter does not appear to stand, five miles north of Sperlonga at most.

I scanned Sperlonga from the ruins of Theodoric's Palace, on the limestone heights, above Terracina: there, if anywhere, fissures or displacements might have been found. I looked for any evidence of earthquake effects, however, in vain.

At Treponti, in the middle of the Pontine Marsh plain, along the Appian Way, and about twenty miles north and west of Terracina, the people said they had been unconscious of the shock, but that it had been felt pretty distinctly, at Piperno, at Sezze, and at Sermoneta, places standing rather high, upon limestone, in the mountain range to the eastward of the marshes, all which squares with the information at Terracina.

At Cisterna, also, close to the Appian Way, and upon the deep alluvium of the marshes, and about thirty miles from Terracina, all trace of the earthquake was finally lost: the people had neither felt it themselves, nor heard anything about it from the neighbourhood, and only knew of its occurrence, from Vetturini, from Naples, &c.; and this continued to be the case, through Velletri and Albano, to Rome.

I reached the "mother of empires" late in the evening, which was intensely cold and windy, and after a very fatiguing day's walking and hammering, amongst the extinct volcanic crater lakes and deposits in the interesting country to the south of the city.