# Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/387

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PALMIERI.

find their subterranean course to St. Michael's Cavern at Pertosa. There are several apertures, and the waters which before their plunge, turn some primitive old "molinas," appear to fall to a great depth. The rock, where visible, shows extremely rapid erosion by the water, as well as evidence of immense dislocation and denudation at former periods, when the great valley was drained dry over it, by the gradual rending of the gorge of Campostrina.

The Palazzo Palmieri is fissured diagonally in every wall more or less, those in the north and south walls being the most formidable. A large wedge-shaped mass, carrying with it a portion of the roof, is thrown from the S. W. quoin of the front, and a large portion of the south external wall, is prostrate and thrown to the south.

In Fig. 1, Diagram No. 175, the form, position, and angles, of the principal fissures found in the west front are shown, looking eastward, entering beneath the "Portoue," and looking back or westward. The fissures formed above the archway in the north and south wall of the interior façade, parallel to the front, are seen in the Photog. No. 177, and in the sectional sketch (No. 178) taken on the line ${\displaystyle \mathrm {AB} }$ (on plan), and looking westward.

The south external wall, ${\displaystyle e}$ to ${\displaystyle g}$, had been thrown to the south, and the upper part lay between ${\displaystyle t}$ and ${\displaystyle k}$.

This is shown, in part, in Photog. No. 180 (Coll. Roy. Soc.), as seen from the balcony of the staircase, directly opposite the entrance gateway, and is shown in elevation in Photog. No. 179, looking eastward. In all these the general directions and angles of the fissures are correctly exhibited. There are some fissures, in all the walls, but the great mass are in those running north and south.