CHAPTER XXXV.
DEPARTURE FROM POTENZA EN ROUTE FOR AVIGLIANO.
On leaving Potenza, the ruins of a place known as Revisco Diruta, are seen northward upon the summit of a low hill, the Pietra Colpa, and are said to be the result of an ancient earthquake. Within half a mile, I pass a great monastery on the east (Di Santa Maria), in the lofty-boundary walls of which, are very large fissures, 5 to 6 inches wide at top. The building is nearly cardinal, and has a low hill to the north, upon the slope of which it lies, as also another to the eastward.
The fissures run nearly north and south, a little west of north, and, so far as I can observe them, without going into the monastery, are confirmatory of all I have determined at Potenza.
The hills all around to the east, and in the immediate neighbourhood, are rounded in sweeping outline, and not lofty, but large; they have generally a deep covering of clay boulders and detritus. The rock beneath, is the argillaceous slaty stuff, with limestone here and there. The beds, wherever I can see them exposed, are at very various strikes, and much dislocated, but all steeply inclined.
I am obviously, here upon the western edge of the vast tertiary deposits, that form the low hills and great plains of the Murgies, stretching far away to the Adriatic. To the
