Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/303

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LUPINO—SISIGNANO
249

inches. Thermo. 52° Fahr. (13th Feb.). This reduced, gives 1441.3 for the altitude. (See Appendix for particulars of all barom. measurements and reductions, &c.) The transverse ridge here, is a complete dividing barrier, upon the south side of the Tanagro, between the great valley of the united streams of the Salaris and Tanagro, and that of the latter river, into which I begin now to descend again rapidly, to within perhaps 400 feet above the bed of the river.

At Lupino, almost no damage was done. The few houses are low, well built, and not very old. The postmaster here was rather uncommunicative. "They had been severely shaken and much alarmed, but knew of no damage done at Lupino. I should find plenty six or seven miles further eastward." I can see with the telescope the old château on the highest part of Sisignano, overthrown and in ruins, and a good deal of damage in the place itself. Gualdo, with Terra Nuova, are above me on the south, but neither have suffered very much. About two miles further on I pass the Taberna of Urma, a small post-house, with a new and yet unroofed Capella close to it, which had just been built, and the mortar of its limestone rubble yet fresh and soft. It was a building of one story, about 30 feet E. and W. by 24 feet N. and S., and the walls about 17 feet high. These are fissured, at three out of the four quoins in such a manner, that the ends tend to come out. The fissures are widest at the east end. The axial line is exactly cardinal by my prismatic compass, and the fissures give a wave-path of 81° 30' west of north. The stones are large in proportion to the size of the building, and I can get no indication reliably as to emergence.

Numbers of fissured buildings now begin to present themselves, all indicating as I pass them a general east and