Untitled

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1339, 7 August 1883, Page 2

By a telegram dated Naples, Jaly 31, we have received notification of a terrible earthquake, in which upwards of 5,000 persons have lost their lives, and that the air is so poisoned with pestilential effluvia that they have been compelled to cover the corpses with quicklime and allow them to remain. Ischia is an island in the bay of Naples, and is the ancient Pithecusa. This part of the world is most memorial in history for its fearful earthquakes and eruptions in one of which the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were overwhelmed in the year 79, the terrors of which Pliny, the younger, together with his wonderful escape, has so graphically depicted. After lying buried in oblivion for upwards of sixteen hundred years the site was discovered,

and excavations commenced in the year 17’21, thus at one stride, carrying us back seventeen hundred years into the streets, habitation- nnfl homes of the luxurious Roman, mowing faithfully every phase of his life. Suddenly, and with little warning, and while they were “ eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” and while life in all its varied forms of happiness and misery, of hopec and stiuggles, of sin and enjoyment, was in full swing in this busy hive of human life, a dark canopy overspread the heavens excluding the direct rays of the sun, and a shower of dust began to float in the air, mixed with stifling sulphurous fumes rendering it difficult to breathe, This was quickly followed by dense showers of heated scoria, dust, and sand, driving the grasping, horrified, and terror-stricken inhabitants into the houses and buildings which became their tombs, whilst numbers were stricken down in their attempted flight to reach a place of safety. Still the pitiless shower continued to fall until streets, houses, and finally the two proud cities became entirely buried and obliterated, and like a vast tomb to be opened to the wonderous gaze of a remote generation, Another terrible earthquake occurred in Naples on the sth of December, 1456, when upwards of 40,000 souls perished ; and another at the same place on July 2nd, 1626, destroyed no less than 30 town and villages, and upwards of 17,000 lives were lost. Again, on the 29th of November, 1732, 1,940 lives were lost at the same place. Again, in the year 1794, the city of Toire del Yreco, in the bay of Naples, was entirely over-whelmed and buried, the same as Pompeii, by an eruption of Vesuvius, On July 26th, 1809, at Frosolone, in the bay of Naples, 6,000 lives were lost, After reading these appalling accounts we cannot be otherwise than thankful that New Zealand earthquakes, though frequent, are little else than a source of amusement and wonder.