Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/34

Rh beam against it—a view strongly favoured by the place of the fracture. To have been overturned simply by inertia, would have required a horizontal velocity of nearly 20 feet per second, and the total velocity here was certainly a good deal within that, which could not have left a stone standing of the four buildings to which reference has been made.

From the upper part of the Palazzo Fino, I obtained several compass bearings to correct for declination by, as for some days and until now, I had not seen the sun. I found

All these, when reduced by Zannoni's great map, give a declination between 13° and 14° west of north. That map was produced about 1810-1812, and having all been laid down from triangulation, and upon so great a scale, the positions marked upon it, are extremely accurate in general.

Montemurro is to this earthquake, what Oppido was to the Calabrian earthquake of 1783. The similarity as to position, and also in the frightful proportion of the deaths to the population, are stated by Grimaldi, in his excellent account of that catastrophe, pp. 19, 20:— "Oppido. Citta de' tempi di mezzo: si vuoli edificata culle rovine dell* antico Mamerto.... Popolazione, 2371; morti, 1813. La citta era situata sopra di una collina circondata da due fiumi: la sua altezza era de cinquecento passi in circa....Questa collina si diviso in due parti: le sue rovine impedirono il corso ai fiumi, che la circondavano e si formarono ivi due gran laghi dalle acque ingurgitate."