Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/56

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ST. MICHAEL—THE BAMBINO.
25

velocity of under 13 feet per second would have sufficed, although, from its irregular figure, a precise calculation is not possible.

From the altar on the north side of the north aisle, a wooden figure of St. Michael had been thrown: it had been gathered up, but the Sacristan replaced it for me on the floor, in the position in which he said he found it. This proved to give a wave-path about 168° 30' E. of north, one so far divergent towards the north, from those otherwise arrived at, that he was probably mistaken, or the figure had been thrown aside by something in its descent. The Chiesa dell' Rosario, stands close to the preceding church, a vacant rectangular building, with a capella opening into it, on the north side. The belfry, seen from the outside in Photog. No. 283 (Coll. Roy. Soc.) has been fissured heavily, and part of its roof thrown down, but the bells stand. The "bambino" from the arms of the Madonna on the altar, was thrown behind the altar (they told me) in the direction marked (Fig. 5, Diagram No. 282 bis). This was possible, for I found the figure of the Madonna, if pushed from the N.W. or S.E. gently, assumed a gyrating rocking round its base. The axis of this church, is parallel with that of the preceding. Its great fractures, run both north and south, and east and west, and some of them are open 6 inches, at 40 feet in height; but in this case also, measurements were useless, owing to the surrounding buildings, some of which are seen in Photog. No. 283 (Coll. Roy. Soc.)

The heavy, red and white alabaster balustrade and capping, (Figs. 5 and 6, Diagram No. 282 bis,) that ran across and separated, the chancel from the nave, was prostrated over the steps on top of which it stood, and the fragments