Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/54

Rh similar, to compare their movements accurately. Generally, however, the displacements in the north and south plane, appeared nearly twice as much as in that east and west.

The walls of this house (three stories) are very thick in proporiion to its size, 2 feet 9 inches, and nearly solid for the lower story; the apertures, few and small comparatively, and the mass of masonry large, above the tops of the upper windows, all of which, with its good class of work, have conspired to its safety, as contrasted with Don Antonio's house opposite, which is of brick in great part, and full of apertures in thin walls—a good example of the utterly diverse effects producible by the same shock.

The Chiesa Madre, a heavy Roman, arched structure, has its axial line 72° E. of north, or nearly east and west (Photog. No. 280, Coll. Roy. Soc). The apse at the east end (Diagram No. 282 bis, Fig. 3), has fallen wholly out, towards the S.E. The great organ, that stood on a gallery over the west door, was projected on to the floor of the nave, in a direction S.E. All the other walls and the roof, are still standing, but heavily fissured. The heavy square piers, 6 feet by 3 feet 6 inches, of the nave, and the crowns of the arches between, are much shattered, but owe their still standing, to the shock having passed through them diagonally, and to their great dimensions. There is a formidable fissure, right across from side to side at the west end, due undoubtedly to the inertia of the organ, elevated at above mid-height, and many other fissures, the positions of some of the chief of which are marked; but little could be deduced from these here, the wave-path being obviously so very abnormal, and the walls of the church being externally