number of the churches were injured. The province of Abruzzo Ulteriore Secondo, where the earthquakes of the night of the 16th were felt with diminished violence, is, God be praised, uninjured. The same comforting assurances have reached us from Capitanata, Molise, and the Three Calabrias. In the district of Taranto some private houses are reported injured, in particular the church of P. P. Domenicani and the Seminario Arcivescovile. The Church of the Cappuccinelli, the palace of the archbishop, and the Chiesa Madre in the Commune of Acquaviva.
No. 283.Naples, 26th December.
Although we have received numerous accounts of the calamities of Potenza, and the communes of that province, they are still incomplete and unsatisfactory, partly because the attention of the authorities has been occupied in relieving the unfortunate survivors, and preventing further accident from the fall of tottering buildings, and partly because accurate details cannot be obtained at a time of general agitation, when every day develops the extent of desolation and adds to the number of disinterred victims. Therefore, instead of repeating with some difference the particulars we have already given, we shall confine ourselves to matters that have not yet been spoken of, and for the benefit of history and science, state that in Potenza the two shocks felt upon that fatal night were of equal duration, and that the first was preceded and accompanied by a fearful noise, whilst the sky was clear and the air tranquil. The first shock was undulatory and up and down (sussultorio), but that which followed about three minutes after (as far as the time could be ascertained, when every second appeared a century), added, to more violent undulations and upheavings, a rotatory and jerking motion; for the walls were thrown upside down, and the heavier furniture moved from its position and tossed about as if in a whirlpool, whilst lighter articles, kitchen utensils and crockery, were thrown to a distance. The great projectile force (of shock) is known to any who have read the descriptions of the earthquakes of Lisbon, Murcia, Valencia, and Guadaloupe, but especially that which devastated Calabria in 1783, destroying in a moment more than a hundred communes, with the loss of upwards of 30,000 people.
