CHAPTER XLIX.
LA CAVA BACK TO NAPLES—THE RECORDS OF THE MARINE OBSERVATORY.
I pushed on rapidly next morning over my former road (as there seemed no sufficient object for entangling myself in the labyrinth of hills to the N.E., where it was certain the earthquake had produced little decisive effects), for La Cava, and thence back to Naples by rail.
At Naples I compared my barometer with that at the Osservatorio Reale di Marina, and obtained the records of the barometric daily observations, as well as those of temperature, kept there, for the period corresponding to my journey in the interior; as also those for a considerable period preceding the earthquake. I learned from the zealous and intelligent director, Il Capitano di Marina Patrelli, that the clock belonging to the self-acting anemometer of the Observatory had been stopped by the shock of the 16th December. The pendulum vibrates quarter seconds, and in a plane 110° W. of north.
The connection of the pendulum with the clock movement was such as insured its stopping by a small motion transverse to the plane of vibration, but the bob touched nothing in the case. They had, unfortunately, not observed carefully the time of stoppage, before setting the clock again going.
I collected at Naples, in the very few book-shops to be
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