ITALY'S VISITATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 315, 5 January 1909, Page 2

ITALY'S VISITATION.

THE POi'E'S GENEROSITY. l'aris, January 3, Lc Temps states that the Pope lias opened a cmlil of a million lire (about £40,01)0) in addition to Ilis other gift. He is also establishing a hospital of 300 beds at Ban Marco. Queen Helena is working devoutedly at .Messina Hospital, where a panic occurred yesterday in consequence of a sli-lit earthquake shock. The Queen was slightly Hurt while trying to prevent a stampede. AMERICA'S PRACTICAL 11EL1'. New York, January H. The United States Congress meets oil ilomlay to pass President Jtoosevelt't suggested appropriation of 500,000 dollars for the sufferers by the earthquake COMMEMORATING HEROISM. Rome, January 3. The citizens of Rome have decided tc ! present the ollicers and men of forcigi: ! warships with medals conimeinorutivi of their heroism. UHITIiUS SHOT. » SKA CASTLN'Ii IT ITS DEAD. Received 5, 0.30 a.m. Ruine, January 4. Sixteen looters at .\l'i's-.ina were shol i. and six hundred arrested yesterday e Koine were attacking _ survivors aat iv others killed an Indian sailor am t 'wounded a carabineer and a Custom! is official. w • The sea is easting ashore hundreds o; l!l corpses terrililv mutilated. On the otliei re liand, the corpses among the ruins an ss "so numerous that it is impossible t< rd 'bury tlieni. They are therefore coverej ?k with lime and will be buried at sea.

RETURN OF THE KING AND QUEEN. Received midnight. Rome, January 4. King Emmanuel and Queen Elena have returned home. They received an ovation. WITHSTANDING THE SHOCKS. Received a, 0.30 a.m. Rome, January 4. An Ttalian engineer states that new houses 30ft high erected at Keggio and •Fcrruzivuo after the earthquake of 1905 resisted the shocks successfully. BRITISHERS' EXPERIENCES. Received 5, 0.30 a.m. London, January 4. Mr. C. Giiger, naval architect, and •Mr. Dorcsn, a shipowner, lioth of london, were the only British survivors of the Trinacria Hotel, Messina, They furnish a thrilling account of how in the darkness they lowered with an improvised rope a Swede, Ms wife, and child to rooms adjoining their own on the third floor, which alone was temporarily spared. They descended themselves, and all took refuge aboard a boat. RELIEF FOR THE SUFFERERS. Received midnight. London. January 4. The Mansion House f.in.l now stands at £30,000. The Duke or C'onnaught contributed 100 guineas. ■ Earl Minto is organising a fund. ■ The Indian Parliament muds on the ■Bth to vote 30,000,0110 lire for the immediate succor of the sulfVrcrs. Rome, January 4. The Sultan of Turkey has sent £IOOO, •and the Russian Red Cross Society •£4OOO. Received 5, 0.30 a.m. Rome, January 4. The Vienna Volunteer Life-saving Society has sent to Sicily three camps and kitchens capable of feeding 24,000 daily. iParis, January 4. • The French national' subscription amounts to £25,000. Berlin, January 4. The German list, just started, amounts to £IO,OOO. London, January 4. The Chronicle hopes that Mr. Asquith, the Premier, will follow the example of the American Congress in voting relief. 1 Received 5, 0.30 a-ja. Melbourne, Laßt Night. 1 The Italian Consul lias received ft cable of sympathy from tQic Governor of New Caledonia. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Mr. Ronald T. Robertson, consular agent for Italy, has opened a fund for the relief of sufferers by the earthquake disaster. Wellington, Last Night. The Italian residents of Wellington met to-night to arrange to help their compatriots who have suffered in Italy. The sum of £4l lis was subscribed in the room, and arrangements were made to get up a concert to augment the relief fund. ' Auckland, Last Night. Over £2OO 'lias been received by the •Mayor for the Italian disaster rclW fund. CALABRIA.

The province of Calabria, the most southern part of Italy, is one of the most earthquake-haunted regions in Europe, not a single year passing without some violent shocks. Bad catastrophes took place in 1181, 1783, 1854, •1894, 1005 and last year. In 1894 many houses were overthrown, and in 1783 many thousands were struck dead and swallowed up by the waves of the sea. in consequence of the concussion, layers of later tertiary have loosened themselves from the granite and gneiss to which they were attached, forming wide rifts or sinking into the deep and burying men and buildings in the chasms thus opened. In 1894 the alarm of famine and want of shelter was stayed with tolerable rapidity by charitable gifts from all over Europe, and by the action' of the State. In the previous century, however, there must have been much suffering as towns and villages were still in ruins 20 years later.

The territory is exceedingly rugged and mountainous', and is "traversed throughout its entire length of lfiO miles by the forest-clad Apennines, whose valleys afford rich pasture. The area of Calabria is 11(1:17 square miles and its population about u million and a half. -

c NATURE'S WARNINGS. CAN EARTHQUAKES HE VORKTOLD : That there are signs of coming earth ■ quakes which might be read by m an had he sufficient knowledge, there won], seem to be little doubt (writes Professo'i Houston in his recent ''Volcanoes anc j .Earthquakes"). These phenomena fol I low natural laws, so that the npproacli i of an earthquake must necessarily be in i a definite order, both as regards the [ phenomena which precede as well n« . those which follow it. There should . therefore, be signs that would enable . one to predict its coming, although, it , must be acknowledged that these t\«m. , so far as we actually know, are indistinct. It may seem to the unthinking and unobservant that the awful cnttiC troplte of an earthquake conies entirely unheralded) that, apparently, ii |. nn '» until the earth's surface I ■,■ • to and fro under the mighty :'..- are causing destruction 1 lint its prescnee can be known. There are. however many reasons for believing t| m i in v ' haps, the greatest number of eases it might have Ibeen foreseen if greater nt. tcntion had been given to the slight ;„. dicalions of its probable approach a short time before its occurrence, it ;'<■ evident that the conditions fl f „ r( , l( f pressure or stress in the earth's crust which finally results in a disastrous j earthquake have been slowly accumulating for a long time, and that when the pressure at last reaches a point where the crust has to yield or slip, t|„> I ground is suddenly crushed and to'ss«il to n-.ul fro, while the vast fissures and chasms are produced in the subterranean regions. At those points of (he earth immediately above or i n the neighborhood of such regions it \ s ))os . silil<' that there are many signs of the coming quake; and, although indistinguishable by our duller senses, htc readily appreciated by the more highly developed senses of the lower aniinaK Indeed, had we accustomed ourselves to reading the various indications of Nature.as the lower animals have, w« I too, might be able to read these warn- I Ing* of the coming earthquake Pi o f,,,. ] sni Houston points out that what k|i inlli'il an eaithquake does not (onsist c>t I i single shaking of the gron.ul, ])„(, „ li'ghh complex senes of -.baking* 'n l(1|( ne mc|iml!uuv tieinOM. sometimes i\ \ \ endm&over day*, and if We weie able ) to foretell the <o mmK j v degree of ecrtaint j, to,be no leasable f, sssssssssssssssssssssssw%^S' scover ' W" I F V

CABLE NEWS (By Oablc.—Press Association.—Copy« right.)

ing earthquake. Long before the coming of'tlie catastrophe they arc said to «• hibit extreme terror, and ill many cMM appear to seek the companionship of man. us if for protection. "It has been remarked," says another writer, "that at such times domestic auuiMls showed a decided uneasiness, dogs howled inciuriifiilly, horses neighed in an un- ' iiMial milliner, and poultry flew restlessI ly about. These latter phenomena might easily be produced 'by neuhitic vapors, which often ascend to the surface of the earth before the breaking out of an I earthquake." THE SLOPES OF ETNA. In a sketch of life at Taormina, which lies on the Sicilian shore of the Straits uf Messina, .Mr. \V. L. Courtney draws . attention to the density of the popula- . lion on the slopes of Etna. "There used to be great woods on the slopes of Moil- " 1 gnbello. Now, because the volcanic soil ' is so fertile, men have pushed their cultivation and built their little huts far up the sides, daring once more, as they have alwiivs dared, ever keeping at the „ back of tlieir minds the dread of iiiimi- „ iieut ruin. As a matter of fact, the lower slopes of Etna are among the u most densely populated agricultural districts in the world. In the triangular area of which the three corners are formed liv Catania, Nicolosi, and Actreale, there are as many as 3500 per square mile. And if Etna suddenly took it into its head to become active? Well, let us live for the present, and not , worn- ourselves about what may never occur. There will be an eruption some,yi time; because these things happen On an average every nine years. But we ~ must trust to the good God and to the Blessed Virgin and Uie most holy saints of to save us as they have saved our fathers before us."