CHAPTER XLII.
RAPOLLA AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD TO MELFI.
I pushed on for Rapolla. It is a place of about 3500 inhabitants; nearly two miles further removed to the N.E. from Vulture. It lies upon a spur of tufa, of enormous depth of deposit, which points towards the N.E., and whose general direction is the same. It is insulated by ravines of great depth and steepness, to the north and south sides of the spur. The upper part of the town, Photog. No. 332 (Coll. Roy. Soc), suffered terribly in 1851, and is still almost wholly in ruins. The fine old Norman cathedral, was then quite destroyed; the present is a modern and very plain structure.
This town has suffered very little from the recent earthquake: it is hard to find even a few fissures, that will give measurable results. Three sets, of two, each, narrow and thread-like, I did find, in new and substantial buildings in different parts of the town, which gave wave-paths of
45° 30' E. of north from the S.W.
24° W. of north from the S.E.
S. to north from the south.
Emergence from the first, 12° from the S.W., from the two others The first, was from a building at the S.W.,
