LARGE CITIES OF THE PLAINS NEAR THE VIIth ISOSEIST. 133 



The Post Office was built on the site of a filled-up marsh, and is a 



m large, well-built, two-storied building of Ted brick 



The Post Office. ... , 



consisting of two rectangular arms about 260 



feet long, 67J feet wide, and about 40 feet high, one arm running due 

 N. W., the other W. 15° S. with an angle of 60° between their direc- 

 tions, thus forming two sides of an equilateral triangle. The angle is 

 truncated by a short connecting portion through the centre of which 

 rises a massive clock tower, F, extending some 53 feet above the flat 

 roof. At the corners A, B, C, D, are four smaller towers, rising 28 

 feet above the roof, and a slightly larger tower, E, close to the clock 

 tower, occurs at the angle of the building. (See pi. 24.) 



There has been very little damage done to the walls and rooms, the 

 chief features of interest being visible on the roof. The portions of the 

 four corner towers A, B, C, D, projecting above the roof, have been 

 badly cracked and shaken : whilst the two towers E and F are both 

 quite sound owing doubtless to less oscillation there than at the free 

 end of the wings. 



All round the margin of the roof rims a low brick parapet in 

 which are embedded a pair of brick gable-ends, (G, H, and K, L,) half- 

 way between the free and fixed ends of each arm of the building. The 

 two gable-ends in the N. W. arm (G, H,) are practically unharmed 

 while the pair in the other arm *(K, L,) are seriously affected. A bad 

 crack runs along the base of each and is flanked by a pair of irregular 

 vertical cracks passing from the basal corners of the gable-end through 

 the parapet wall : the one on the soutn (L) is in a more or less 

 dangerous condition, and was seen to oscillate and lean over by a man 

 standing on the ground below. (See fig. 38.) 



Fig. 38. 

 From this it is evident that the shock struck the building in a direc- 

 tion more nearly at right angles to the western arm than to the north- 

 western arm. 



