Remarkable Pfnenomenon. — Statistics. 395 



Letters received from the island of Santa Maura state, that 

 on the 21st of February a violent shock of an earthquake was 

 felt there about eight o'clock in the evening. It produced 

 the greatest consternation in the minds of the people. Se- 

 veral buildings were much injured, and the bridge which joins 

 Fort Alexander to the city was broken down. No lives were 

 lost, but two females were severely wounded. 



SINKING OF THE EARTH. 



Naples, April 5. 

 Continual and excessive rains in the course of last month 

 have caused a sinking in of the ground in the district of Avi- 

 gliano, in the province of Basilicata, which has shaken a great 

 part of the hill on which the town is built. This terrible 

 phenomenon first manifested itself in the night of the 17th, 

 by the fall of a house close to the barrack of the gendarmes. 

 The house, which is totally destroyed, carried with it in its 

 fall the barrack and several adjoining buildings. In the 

 morning of the 23d, a greater misfortune followed ; for a gulf 

 opened near the inhabited parts, which swallowed up, under 

 enormous masses of earth, two mills, of which not a vestige 

 remains. The same day, all the young girls of the place were 

 nearly the victims. They were going in procession to the church 

 of St. Mary, about a mile from the place, to implore the 

 Divine mercy in this moment of calamity, and they had hardly 

 passed a certain spot, when the ground to the extent of five 

 acres sunk in with a tremendous crash, overthrowing all the 

 trees that covered it, and destroying all traces of the road for 

 about a quarter of a mile. At the same time another gulf 

 opened on the north side. It may be supposed that many 

 buildings in the town have been damaged by this event. The 

 Intendant of the province immediately sent an architect to 

 save them from entire destruction. Happily no lives were 

 lost except one gendarme. On the same night there was a 

 dreadful storm in the Adriatic. 



STATISTICS. 



Paris, May 21. 



It results from some tables just published by M. Benoiston, 

 in a Memoir e sur les Enfans trouves, that the number of 

 foundlings has gone on increasing in every State in Europe, 

 except from 1790 to 1800. During that interval the diminu- 

 tion amounted to a third ; but after that period, and Particu- 

 larly since 1815, the number has constantly increased. 1 here 

 were 51,000 foundlings in France in 1798, 69,000 in 1809, 

 84,500 in 1815, and 138,500 in 1822. According to the 

 3 y) 2 Annua ire 



