burning for three days, and crumbled a large stone (macigno) into powder.
Innumerable fissures have been observed. The courage and humanity of the citizens of this commune are highly laudable, and we must not omit to record the Christian example given by Judge Paolo Navazio: amid the applause and tears of 5000 inhabitants, he carried on his own shoulders the bodies of the poor people who had been excavated from their untimely graves. The Syndic, Signor D. Egidio Marco Giuseppe, who merited much from his unfortunate country, aided in the pious work.[1] With regard to Moliterno, I cannot do better than transcribe the contents of a letter which I received from the worthy young Signor D. Giacomo Racioppi, already distinguished by his literary and scientific works. "The 16th of December, like its predecessors, was mild and serene, the sun's rays warm, and the sky clear. No phenomena preceded the earthquake, or at least they were not understood or observed. On the 18th, a miller of Moliterno perceived that the usually pure watercourse which set his machinery in motion, was slightly muddy, and having ascended to its source, he found the spring greatly swelled and increased. Some days previously I had complained of the muddiness of the water brought to table; but as it was obtained from the most copious and clearest source, viz., the public fountain of Moliterno, I attributed it to the vessel which held it. Early in the evening of the 16th one of us fancied he saw the furniture shaken, but the rest in the room did not perceive it, and perhaps it was an illusion. The first shock occurred about five o'clock at night: after an interval of four minutes, (if time can be accurately computed in the agitation of terror,) the second ensued, severe, violent, and lasting thirty seconds. It was horizontal, vertical, and rotatory; men staggered on the pavement. Some plaster statues on the table were either thrown off, or shaken from their places. A cowherd going to his work at the fatal moment, observed that the atmosphere over the towns in the valley was lighted up and looked like a dazzling, moving band. Those who left their houses
- ↑ In the town itself (Calvello), on the 18th of January, an hour and a half before noon, a strong shock of earthquake was felt, preceded by a blast of wind and sparkling meteors, which described a parabola from south to west.
