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Miscellaneous Intelligence. 443 *il> , 



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3. 0« the Earthquake in Calahria ; by E. J. Morris, (lelfer to editors 

 of Washington Republic, dated Naples, Aug. 26, 1S51.)— On the 14th 

 u!t., the western portion of the conlinenlal part of this kingdom, from 

 the northern confines of Calabria to the Roman frontier, was agiiated 

 by several calamitous shocks of earthquake. This convulsion appears \ 



to have had its origin in ihe volcanic region of Mount Vulture, about 

 one hundred miles to the southeast of Naples. It is a detached and 

 isolated eminence, three thousand feet in elevation, rising at the point 

 where the Appeninexhain terminates on the borders of the Basilicala 

 and Apulia; its slopes and summits are broken into numerous craters, 

 of the action of which no record exists, but which yet bear undoubted 

 evidence of eruptive violence at some remote period. 



The^city of Meifi, separated from Mount Vulture by a deep ravine, 

 is built upon the summit of a hill, the composition of which is grey lava, 

 intersected by strata of travertine upon layers of ashes, sand, tufa, and 

 decomposed stalactites, ail denoting the site of an extinct or dormant 

 Volcano. Previous to the first shock, a small stream which runs near 

 the town suddenly disappeared, and the shepherds on the mountain 

 Were alarmed by loud rumbling noises beneath their feet. The monks 

 of an adjoining convent, admonished by these phenomena, escaped from 

 their building almost at the moment it was rent in twain. 



At the first shock, Melfi, which contains ten thf>usand inhabitants, was 

 prostrated in the dust, nothing but a few crumbling walls surviving the 

 general ruin. An unknown number of its inhabitants were buried un- 

 der the falling mass of fabrics ; up lo the present moment seven hundred 

 dead bodies have been disinterred and others are constantly being found ; 

 more than two hundred persons lie in an adjacent hospital, suffering 

 under grievous wounds, while many have been dug out alive from the 

 ruins. Amongst others, a female infant a year old, nfier lying buried 

 lor two days, was brought out living and unharmed, and restored to its 

 afflicted mother, widowed by this same calamity. 



The neighboring towns of Atella, Rionero, Barile, and RapoIIa, are 

 -Sufferers by the same convulsion. Rionero is a general wreck, not a 

 sound house remaining — more than a hundred persons have here per- 

 ished, and as many have been maimed or wounded- In Barile, the only 

 edifice not entirely destroyed is the orphan asylum, while the discover- 

 ed dead amount to about one hundred and fifty. In the commune of 

 Bari, the towns of Ceralo, Minervino, Spinnazzola, Andria and Trani, 

 Were all more or less injured. In Canosa, the ancient Canosium, found- 

 ed by Diomed, and whose walls once enclosed a circuit oi sixteen miles, 

 three hundred and seventy-six houses were thrown down. At the last 

 J^eports the shocks around Mount Vulture continued, and one-half of ^ 



the city of Venosa, the ancient Venusia, containing six thousand inhab- 

 itants, and celebrated as the birthplace of Horace, was destroyed. The 

 mountain provinces of the Abruzzi and of Calabria, where the earih- 

 quake of 1783 destroyed three hundred cities and buried thirty thousand 



human beings, have thus far escaped. 



The recent earthquake commenced with a sharp concussion, which 



was succeeded by an undulalory movement, the first shock being about 

 '>ixly seconds in duration. At Melfi there were six shocks, the first at | 



'%i P. M., the second at 3J, the third at 4^, the fourth at 10 p. M., the 



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