The innermost isoseismal being too large, and the time-records too inaccurate, to give the position of the epicentre, both Commissions resorted to observations of the direction, Professor Fouqué and his colleagues depending chiefly on the oscillation of hanging lamps, and Professors Taramelli and Mercalli on the fall or displacement of statues and other objects, and all avoiding as far as possible the evidence of fissures in buildings. The Italian observers point out that, among the divergent directions visible at any place, there is generally one more distinctly marked than the others, and this, they consider, corresponds to the movement coming almost directly from the centre of disturbance. Plotting these directions (36 in number), they find that they converge as a rule within the triangle formed by joining Ventas de Zafarraya, Alhama, and Jatar, while a large number of them traverse the elliptical area, whose boundary is represented by the dotted line in Fig. 19. This area is about 9 miles long and 2-1/2 miles wide, its longer axis runs nearly east and west, and its centre coincides with the western focus of the ellipse which forms the boundary of the meizoseismal area. It lies, moreover, close to Ventas de Zafarraya and Arenas del Rey, the two places where the seismic death-rate was highest, while its major axis almost coincides with the line joining them. The evidence of hanging lamps collected by the French Commission was more consistent than that of the fallen objects. At every place, the plane in which the lamps oscillated was nearly constant, the deviations being generally attributable to irregularities in the mode of suspension. The azimuths again intersect within an elliptical area, which, according to the Commission, differs little from the central region of the earthquake (Fig. 20). It Is clear, however, from the map accompanying the French report, that the majority converge towards a narrow band extending east and west from near Arenas del Rey to near Ventas de Zafarraya, and therefore agreeing closely with the epicentral area as determined by Professors Taramelli and Mercalli.[33] DEPTH OF THE SEISMIC FOCUS.