Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/80

Rh (as sketched for me on the spot) in the form shown in Fig. 4. All the fallen material, had been thrown towards the S.W., the portions at N.E. side, into the interior of the tower, carrying the floor down before it; that A (Fig. 4), a good distance off from the base of the tower, towards the S.W.; and the part B, which held the bells thrown with the latter, 25° oblique to the south face of the tower, or in a direction 10° E. of north to south; the tower itself having its faces or axial line 15° W. of north.

The bells had been found, at the very bottom of the rubbish; they had fallen mouth down, and struck the hard ground of the unpaved street, without any rubbish beneath to deaden the fall, and so left their marks when cleared around, at the exact points at which they had struck. These were given to me by the Judice, as measured, and were 16 feet from the vertical where they had hung, taken on the ground level, and in the plane of throw; nearly alike for both.

It was obvious, that they had been chucked out of the pintle sockets, by the sudden jerk, of the emergent shock, and had begun to fall just before the arches that they came from, began to follow them. (See Fig. 3, Diagram 295, for form of belfry.) The wave-path being in the direction $$a$$ to $$b$$, oblique through the S.W. angle of the tower, and steeply emergent, this angle being the extreme fulcrum of push, and the resistance of the tower, being in the vertical line through the centre of gravity at $$c$$, and in the opposite direction $$c$$ to $$d$$; a dynamic couple having $$a$$ and $$c$$ for its terminals, had produced a twist in the tower, in the act of falling; and part of this having been communicated to the bells at the instant preceding their fall, had thrown them