Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/44

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PIANO VISCOLIONE.
15

vast mass of mud, from its base, round and over which, it now found its way to the Agri, by channels momentarily altering. It appeared to me that in three or four winters the greater part, if not the whole of this vast mass would be clean gone and deposited in the Adriatic. After crossing the little Fiume Galli, that comes down from Mount Capodallo, I passed the hamlets of Casa Rossa, and a solitary mansion in the midst of rich olive gardens, that seemed only known as "II Palazzo," most of them in ruin. The houses at Casa Rossa, lay close beneath the mountain mass to the N.W., upon which Marsico Vetico stands, and as thus on an outlying stratum, and had suffered severely. II Palazzo (Photog. No. 273, Coll. Roy. Soc), as also a large mass that seemed, by its only remaining tower and the thickness of its walls, to have been some sort of mediæval strong house, or perhaps a convent (there was no one to be found), both gave wave-paths, generally coinciding with what I had obtained for all this region around.

The Paiazzo showed also evidences of an orthogonal shake, derived from the limestone mountain-mass to the east of it, that of Marsico Vetico. Both these large buildings, stood upon the deep clays of the piano—the hamlets where these got shallow, at the junction with the limestone.

This piano, seems to be usually called that of Viscolione, or the Forest of Saponara—i e., all the upper end of the Piano of Mattine; but names of places are very loose affairs here. At the eastern end of this smaller valley, and before commencing to ascend it towards Tramutola, I found the barometer stood at 27·98 inches, thermometer 44° Fahr. (18th February at 3h 3m Naples