CHAPTER XLIII.
FIRST MOVEMENTS IN RETURNING—SNOWING UP ON MONTE CROCE.
I commenced my return, through Rapolla Barielle Rionero and Atella, a long and fatiguing ride of about thirty miles, to Muro, intending now to traverse the extreme N.W. region of the shock, through the valleys south of the great ridge of Monte Calvello and Monte Accellico.
On re-passing Atella, and looking back upon it from the south, I see that on this side it stands on a pretty steep escarpment, with large beds of lava, showing a rapid slope from Vulture, exposed and cut through, along with the beds of tufa. Denudation here, at the torrent Fiumara d' Atella, running west, has cut through at least 300 feet of volcanic deposits. Yesterday I noticed, near Rapolla, lava beds reposing on tufa, and cut quite through, which had by the eye a slope of at least 30°, dipping north and N.E. from Vulture. The whole of the volcanic phenomena of the Vulture district, are developed upon a scale of grandeur, to which Vesuvius is insignificant.
Crossing the Artuso and the Vonchia, two nearly parallel torrential streams, descending from Monte Pierno to the south and west, and running northward to fall into the Fiumara d' Atella, I came upon, green yellow and brown
