Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/79

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OTHER OBJECTS— SIGNOR PESCAROSO'S.

side aisles, which give a direction of wave-path very nearly S.W. to N.E. There are some old fissures, which have been enlarged, but I neglected them. The candlesticks from the altar were thrown towards the north and east, but in directions no longer accurately ascertainable.

A picture hanging at (Fig. 296) by a single nail from the east wall, 3 feet 4 inches high by 2 feet 2 inches wide, is swung off towards the north in plane of the wall 3½ inches in its own height out of plumb, and remains so, being high up. It appears, by some scales of whitewash detached from the wall just at the bottom of the heavy frame, and still on a ledge below it, to have swung out from the face of the wall, and, describing a short curve towards the west and north, to have struck sharply against the wall again, proving a path coinciding thus with that from the fissures.

The house of Signor Pescaroso, at the top of the town, shows two pair of very measurable fissures in the walls, which give a wave-path 50° E. of north, and 49° E. of north, respectively. The mean 49° 30' E. of north, I conclude to be very near the true wave-path here; there are several other fissures, though none of great width, all of which indicate very great steepness in the emergent angle.

The Communal Campanile (Figs. 3 and 4, Diagram No. 295) had its two bells, of about 50 and 70 rotuli respectively, hung in slender brick arches, upon the summit of the square tower, at a height above the base, which Signor Gorrosi informs me was exactly 73 palms = 63 feet nearly: the tower since then had been taken down, to the level of the clock dial centre, below which there was not a symptom of fissure or injury. The upper part, had been shorn off however, and the portion left stood