J. P. Lacaita on Earthquakes in Southern Italy. 211 
thousand more to the number of victims. Mountains were cleft 
fevers followed in summer; and at the beginning of 1784 
Calabria had already lost more than 80,000 inhabitants. From 
February to December 1788, there were no less than 949 shocks, 
and 151 in 1784; they did not altogether cease till 1786. 
2. The mountain of Frosolone, in the province of Molise, the 
ancient Samnium, on the 26th of J uly, 1804, at 104 Pp. M., was the 
centre of a violent shock of earthquake, which lasted 35 seconds, 
and caused great desolation over an area of 600 square miles. It 
Tuined 61 towns and villages, and crushed to death more than 
6000 people. It was severely felt as far as Naples, where all the 
buildings were greatly injured by its effects. 
8. On the 29th of April, 1835, and on several successive days, 
the Val di Crati, in the province of Calabria Citra, including the 
town of Cosenza and its numerous villages, was convulsed by 
violent shocks of earthquake, which caused the death of more 
than 1000 people under the ruins. 
4. On the 12th of October, 1836, the districts of Rossano and 
Castrovillari, in the same province, and the district of Lagonegro, 
in Basilicata, felt another violent shock of earthquake, which 
5. The city of Melfi, built on a spur of Mount Vulture, an 
hock, at 8 P. M., lasted only five seconds. 
The loss of human life exceeded 1400; Melfi alone, out of 9274, 
6. But worse than any of the latter earthquakes, and second 
only to the Calabrian one of 1783, was the earthquake which 
took place on the 16th of December last, at 10} P. M., at a season 
of the ye k of 
earthquakes, h 
ances than 
unusual stillness had 
babi of 
extinct volcano in the province of Basilicata, on the 14th of 
* 
