Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/346

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HOW THE SHOCK REACHED NAPLES.
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that from Montella to two geographical miles west of Eboli; and nearly to the S.W., by five nearly parallel, though very irregular ridges, including the mighty double mass of Alburno. But by one narrow gap, as it were, the way was clear for its easy transmission in a direct line, from the seismic vertical, to Salerno and thereabouts. This occurred where all these transverse ridges sink down, and leave the outlet to the west of the great Valley of the Tanagro, reaching from within a mile or two of Caggiano, to the sea; and having a clear width at Eboli, between the hills to the north of it, and those on the left bank of the river Salaris, due south, of from three to four geographical miles.

Along this Yalley, of the Tanagro and Salaris, the wave was transmitted "end on" to the general mass of the formations of the valley itself, and with small loss; so that from the origin divergent pencils of wave impulse in azimuths between 66° and 75° W. of north were transmitted, past this gate of Eboli, and debouching into the broken and hilly plain, between Eboli and Salerno, thus reached the southern flank, of the great range of Monte St. Angelo, between Baronissi and Capo di Campanello, opposite Capri, in wave-paths very oblique to the axial line of this range.

The mountains of this range, forming the projecting peninsula to the south side of the Bay of Naples, are but a prolongation of the great east and west range of the Apennine, with a depression about Baronissi. From about Teora and Caposele, westward of Capri, the axial line of the chain is nearly straight, and its direction not far from east and west by compass, with a slight inflection from a right line, at a point north of Atrani.