1909.] THEIR CAUSES AND EFFECTS. 257 



Sea, the city has enjoyed prosperity for centuries, in spite of fre- 

 quent visitation from earthquakes. The city was almost com- 

 pletely destroyed by a shock in February, 1783, but the people seem 

 to have learned nothing from their experience with an unstable 

 land. The Messina of yesterday — the city does not exist to-day — 

 was constructed of stone and rubble and old cement. The build- 

 ings lined narrow streets and were three, four and even five stories 

 high with massive walls. Hence when the shock came and raised 

 and then dropped the ground for half a minute, the houses, stores, 

 hotels, churches and government buildings were shaken into un- 

 recognizable heaps of debris, filling the sites of the structures and 

 obliterating the streets. The sea-wall in front of the city was 

 partly destroyed, and the promenade along the harbor sank in 

 places below the water. 



Reggio di Calabria likewise has suffered frequently from 

 earthquakes, but until within the past few years the inhabitants 

 had not profited by experience to put up earthquake-proof build- 

 ings, and all the old houses in the city were demolished by this 

 latest quake. New houses not more than ten meters (33 feet) 

 high are said to have resisted the shocks perfectly. Throughout 

 the Calabrian earthquake district the buildings erected since the 

 disaster of 1905, according to the specifications of the Milan Com- 

 mittee, are reported to be intact in spite of the severe shaking thus 

 received, but all these are low structures. 



Photographs show that there was some Assuring of the ground 

 at Messina, and it is reported that " vast chasms " were opened at 

 both Messina and Reggio, but the latter statement is probably in- 

 correct. Professor G. B. Rizzo is quoted as stating-- that the sea 

 bottom rose in some places, for he saw several boats out of water 

 at the places where they had been anchored some distance from 

 the original shore. The extensive breaking of telegraphic cables 

 indicates submarine disturbance, but the fact of* any considerable 

 change in the configuration of the sea bottom remains to be proven 

 and can only be established by careful soundings. No changes in 

 the coast line have occurred, as far as can be detected without an 



^Nature, Vol. LXXIX., p. 289, January 7, 1909. 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC. XLVIIl. I92 K, PRINTED SEPTEMBER 7, I909. 



