Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/154

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ELEVATION OF MONTICCHIO—MAP DECLINATION.
103

almost from south to north, or a little from the west. They seem to have paid but little heed to it however, as they can give no clear information of how long it lasted, what time it occurred, or whether there was a noise with it or not. They say they did not discover that the building had been fissured until after daylight next morning.

I found here that the centre of the western lake surface, bore exactly due west, from the front and centre of the length, of the monastery; and comparing this with the bearing given by Zannoni's great map, the magnetic declimnation here proves to have been 14° westerly, which is within 30' of the declination now given at the Observatory at Naples.

At 9h 26" Naples mean time (24th February), the barometer read 27·65 inches on the first-floor level of the monastery, thermo. 36o Fahr., and the height above the sea proves to be 2107·5 feet. It is therefore not above 200 or 300 feet above Rionero, although the high shoulder of Vulture, which I passed over, intervenes, nor above half the height of the mountain itself, the highest point of which, is given by Palmieri and Scacchi ('Memoir on Melfi Earthquake of 1851') at 4356 feet, and who give 1880 feet as the elevation of Rionero, and by Don Arabia (Del Tremuoto di Basilicata, &c.) at 4128 feet Abich makes the level of Monticchio lake as much as 2332 feet. There was a sudden locaI disturbance of weather, on the night of February 23rd, and a considerable fall of snow took place, which may have rendered the comparison of my barometric height, with that of Naples Marine Observatory for the same time less to be trusted, and my height is possibly below the truth.

I left for Barielle, and found considerable difficulty in