336 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



severe winter on a high peak of the Apennines ! A few days later the stench 

 of the dead human beings under the ruins made life unbearable to the few 

 surviving ones. Both at Montcmurro and Saponara, most of the houses 

 standing on beds of conglomerate had been overturned, or shuffled in the 

 strangest manner, and the ruins deposited in the ravines beneath; the con- 

 tents of the lower stories were, in several instances, thrown up into the 

 stories above, or scattered in different directions, as if propelled by a central 

 force. The scenes of misery and horror that took place in those doomed 

 towns exceed what imagination can fancy. Viggiano came next, a town 

 Avhose inhabitants from time immemorial have been in the habit of wander- 

 ing with their harps over different parts of the world, and returning home 

 with their savings in summer. It lost 1,700 out of 6,034 inhabitants, and had 

 most of the houses and churches overthrown. At this place an extensive 

 fire added to the horrors of the night. From the centre of a triangle formed 

 by these three towns, on which the fury of the convulsion was more violently 

 wreaked, the distances, in a direct line, are to the Gulf of Policastro, 24 

 miles; to Prestum, on the Gulf of Salerno, 58 miles; to the mouth of the 

 Agri, on the Gulf of Tarentum, 47 miles ; to the extinct volcano of Mount 

 Vulture, 55 miles; to Mount Vesuvius, 94 miles; to Ban, on the Adriatic, 80 

 miles; and to Mount Etna, 195 miles. Beyond this district, the terrific effects 

 of the earthquake extended, though somewhat diminished in intensity, over 

 an area of more than 3,000 square miles, destroying or injuring, more or 

 less, about 200 towns and villages, with an aggregate population of more 

 than 200,000 inhabitants, of whom no less than 10,000 were killed. The 

 whole number of persons destroyed by this earthquake in a few seconds has 

 been carefully estimated as 22,000 ; and it also appears, from reliable data, 

 that in the course of 75 years, from 1783 to 1857, the kingdom of Naples has 

 lost by earthquake agencies at least 110,000 inhabitants, or more than 1,500 

 per year, out of an average population of 6,000,000. 



CURIOUS PHENOMENON ACCOMPANYING EARTHQUAKE MANIFES- 

 TATIONS. 



Dr. C. Forbes of Chili, S. A., in a letter to the London Geological Society, 

 states, that for some time previous to the occurrence of a severe earthquake- 

 shock, on or about the 30th August, 1857, the Bay of Payta swarmed with 

 crabs, of a kind not generally observed, and ten days after the earthquake 

 they were thrown up on the beach, in a raised wall-like line, three to four 

 feet wide, and to the height of about three feet, along the whole extent of 

 the bay, and above high-water mark. At the same time as the upheaval of 

 the crabs took place, the water of the bay became changed, from a clear blue, 

 to a dirty blackish-green color, much resembling that oif the Island of Chiloc, 

 Conccpcion, and the southern parts of Chili. Ten days afterwards, Dr. C. 

 Forbes found that living specimens of the crabs were still numerous in the 

 bay ; but all appeared to be sickly, and numbers came ashore to die. There 

 were no appearances of any alteration of the relative position of sea and land 

 in the vicinity, nor had any ebullition of gases been observed; although prob- 

 ably, to both these causes combined, the phenomenon described was due. 



SUBMARINE EARTHQUAKE. 



A submarine earthquake was observed on 25th of November, 1S77. Wil- 

 liam Cook, master of the British schooner Ustremadara of Glasgow, thought 



