' it Count ippolito’s Account of the 
people expofed to them. Neither, however, could it, nor 
can it, be otherwife in countries liich as thefe are, which are 
interfered by the chain of the Appennines, the bowels ot which 
contain nothing but fulphur, iron, fofiil coals, petroleum, 
and other bituminous and combuftible matters. The quantity 
of thefe minerals mu ft neceffarilv occafion fermentations and 
fubterraneous fires, and it is good for us that we have fo many 
volcanoes in the neighbourhood, to ferve as chimnies, and 
afford outlets to the fire which forms under our feet. 
But amongft fo many earthquakes to which we have been ex- 
pofed, the leafl is not that under which we at prefent fuffer, whe- 
ther we confider the force of the concudions, or their duration, 
or the changes that have taken place in the furface of the 
earth, or the ruin of fo many cities and villages, with the lofs 
of forty thoufand inhabitants. 
I have kept a regular account from the day of the fiifl {hock 
of the fifth of February, not only of the convulfions fuffered 
by the earth, but likewife of all the meteors obferved in the 
atmofphere. This the {hortnefs of time will not allow me to 
tranfmit to your excellency ; but the fum of it is, that from 
the 5th of February to this inflant the {hocks have been more 
frequent, and almoft every day repeated. At times the earth 
{hook as it ufually does on thefe occafions ; but at others the mo- 
tion was undulatory, and at others vorticofe, during which lad: 
{late it refembled a fhip tolled about in a high lea. The moft 
coniiderabie of thefe repeated earthquakes were thofe which 
took place on the fifth of February, at 19I Italian time; 011 
the feventh, about 2of ; on the twenty-eighth, about 8| of 
the night ; and finally on the twenty-eighth of March, about 
1 1 in the evening. Thefe four eruptions coming, as nearly as 
we can judge by the phenomena and effects, from the chain 
of mountains which extend from Reggio hitherwards, have 
produced four different explofions in four different parts of 
Calabria. The three former were in that part of the province 
in which your excellency now is, and that which you mud: 
pafs through in your journey to Medina. Thefe explofions 
have produced various great effects ; ruined cities and villages, 
levelled 
