Earthquake in Naples—Great Loss of Life.
The National Intelligencer of yesterday, publishes a letter from Hon. , U. S. chargé at Naples, descriptive of the terrible earthquake which occurred in the Western portion of that Kingdom, on the 14th It is supposed that the loss of life will amount to more than two thousand five hundred souls.
The communication from Mr. gives the following particulars of this lamentable event, more full than have appeared elsewhere:
To the Editors of the Washington Republic:
On the 14th ult. the western portion of the continental part of this kingdom, from the northern confines of Calabria to the Roman frontier, was agitated by several calamitous shocks of earthquake. This convulsion appears to have had its origin in the volcanic region of Mount Volture, about one hundred miles to the south-east of Naples. It is a detached and isolated eminence, three thousand feet in elevation, rising at the point where the Appenine chain terminates, on the borders of Basilicata and Apulia; its slope and summits are broken into numerous craters, of the vitality of which no record exists, but which yet bear unmistakable evidences of eruptive violence at some remote period.
The city of Melfi, separated from Mount Volture by a deep ravine, is built upon the summit of a hill, the composition of which is grey lava, intersected by strata of travertine upon layers of ashes, sand, tufa, and decomposed stalactites, all denoting the site of an extinct or dormant volcano. Previous to the first shock a small stream which runs near the town suddenly disappeared and the shepherds on the mountain were alarmed by loud rumbling noises beneath their feet. The monks of an adjoining convent, admonished by these phenomena, escaped from their building almost at the moment it was rent in . At the first shock, Melfi, which contains ten thousand inhabitants, was prostrated in the dust, nothing but a few crumbling walls surviving the general ruin. An unknown number of its inhabitants were buried under the falling mass of ; up to the present moment seven hundred dead bodies have been disinterred, and others are constantly being found; more than two hundred persons lie in an adjacent hospital, suffering under grievous wounds, while many have been dug out alive from the ruins. Among others, a female infant a year old, after lying buried for two days, was brought out living and unharmed, and restored to its afflicted mother, widowed by this same calamity.
The neighboring towns of Atella, Rionero, Barile, and Rapolla, are sufferers by the same convulsion. Rienero is a general wreck, not a sound house remaining—more than a hundred persons have perished, and as many have been maimed or wounded. In Barile, the only edifice not entirely destroyed is the orphan asylum, while the discovered dead amount to about one hundred and fifty. In the commune of Bari, the towns of Cerato, Minervino, Spinazola, Andria, and Trani were all injured more or less. In Canosa, the ancient Canosium, founded by Diomed, and whose walls once enclosed a circuit of sixteen miles, three hundred and seventy-six houses were thrown down. At the last reports the shocks around Mt. Volture continued, and one-half of the city of Venosa, the ancient Venusia, containing six thousand inhabitants, and celebrated as the birthplace of Horace, was destroyed. The mountain provinces of the Abruzzi and of Calabria, where the earthquake of 1782 destroyed three hundred cities and buried thirty thousand human beings, have thus far escaped.
The recent earthquake commenced with a sharp concussion, which was succeeded by an undulatory movement, the first shock being about sixty seconds in duration. At Melfi there were six shocks, the first at 2¼ P. M., the second at 3¼, the third at 4¾, the fourth at 10 P. M., the fifth at 3 A. M. and the sixth at 7 A. M.
At my summer residence in the country, eighty miles from Melfi, the house shook to its foundations; and, such was the vibration, that it was difficult to ascend the staircase. For ten minutes previous the house-dog howled in most dismal tones, the chickens cackled and hurried about as if fleeing from some anticipated danger, and a pair of turkeys rose in the air and flew around the house screaming as if seized by secret terror, while all the dogs in the neighborhood were in full bay. No damage was done at La Cava, or at Naples, beyond slight cracks in old walls.