Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/226



The meteorological records of the Royal Marine Observatory at Naples, which are kept in a style that would do credit to any such establishment in the world, were furnished to me by the Director, Il Capitano Patrelli, of the (late) Neapolitan navy, for the years 1848 to the end of February, 1858. It would be useless to present, in extenso, this vast mass of observation. I have extracted from it, in the following synoptic table, the barometric, thermometric, and hyetometric, mensual means, from 1853 to February, 1858, inclusive, viz., up to the date of my leaving Naples. The data thus given are sufficient to show that there is no obvious connection between the meteorological conditions of season and weather, whether preceding, contemporaneous, or succeeding, and the occurrence of the earthquake, except probably in respect to the rainfall for the time preceding. It is observable that the month of the shock (December, 1857), has a mean barometric pressure of 10.76 inches above the mean for the same month in the preceding four years, and that the total rainfall, for the month of shock and that preceding, taken together, is greatly below the mean of November and December, for the preceding four years.