VOL. LXXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 375 



IQ± (according to the Italian way of counting the hours); of the 6th of Feb., 

 at 7 hours in the night ; of the 27th of Feb., at 11J- in the morning ; of the 

 1st of March, at 8i in the night ; and that of the 28th of March, at ]i in the 

 night. It was this last shock that affected most the upper part of Calabria Ultra, 

 and the lower part of the Citra, an authentic description of which will be seen 

 hereafter, in a letter received from the Marquis Ippolito, an accurate observer 

 residino- at Catanzaro in the Upper Calabria. The first and the last shocks must 

 have been tremendous indeed, and only these two were sensibly felt in the capital, 



Naples. 



The accounts which this government has received from the province of 

 Cosenza, are less melancholy than those from the province of Calabria Ultra. 

 From Cape Suvero to the Cape of Cetraro on the western coast, the inland 

 countries, as well as those on the coast, are said to have suffered more or less in 

 proportion to their proximity to the supposed centre of the earthquakes ; and it 

 has been constantly observed, that its greatest violence has been exerted, and still 

 continued to be so, on the western side of the Appennines, precisely the cele- 

 brated Sila of the ancient Brutii, and that all those countries situated to the 

 eastward of the Sila had felt the shocks of the earthquake, but without having 

 received any damage from them. In the province of Cosenza there does not 

 appear to be above 100 lives lost. In the last account from the most afflicted 

 part of Calabria Ultra, two singular phenomena are mentioned. At about the 

 distance of three miles from the ruined city of Oppido, there was a hill, the soil 

 of which is a sandy clay, about 500 palms high, and 1300 in circumference at 

 its basis. It was said, that this hill, by the shock of the 5th of February, was 

 carried to the distance of about 4 miles from the spot where it stood, into a plain 

 called the Campo di Bassano. At the same time the hill on which the town of 

 Oppido stood, which extended about 3 miles, divided in two, and as its situation 

 was between two rivers, its ruins filled up the valley, and stopped the course of 

 those rivers , two great lakes are already formed, and are daily increasing, which 

 takes, if means are not found to drain them, and give the rivers their due course, 

 in a short time must greatly infect the air. 



From Sicily the accounts of the most serious nature were, those of the 

 destruction of the greatest part of the noble city of Messina, by the shock of 

 the 5th of February, and of the remaining parts by the subsequent ones ; — that 

 the kay in the port had sunk considerably, and was in some places a palm and 

 a half under water ; — that the superb building, called the Palazzata, which gave 

 the port a more magnificent appearance than any port in Europe can boast of, 

 had been entirely ruined ; — that the Lazaret nad been greatly damaged ; but that 

 the citadel had suffered little ; — that the mother church had fallen ; in short, that 

 Messina was half destroyed ; — that the tower at the point of the entrance of 



