My Acquaintance With The Habits Of Apulian Earthquakes, With The Science Of Hydrodynamics And The Geological Formation Of San Gervasio Is Not Sufficiently Extensive To Allow Me To Express A Mature Opinion.

I will content myself with presenting to future investigators the plausible theory - plausible because conveniently difficult to refute - that some terrestrial upheaval in past days is responsible for the present state of things.

But these are merely three hypotheses. I proceed to mention three facts which point in the same direction; i.e. that the water used to issue at a higher level. Firstly, there is that significant name "Fontana rotta" - "the broken fountain." . . . Does not this suggest that its flow may have been interrupted, or intercepted, in former times?

Next, if you climb up from this "Fontana rotta" to the village by the footpath, you will observe, on your right hand as you ascend the slope, at about a hundred yards below the Church of Saint Anthony, an old well standing in a field of corn and shaded by three walnuts and an oak. This well is still running, and was described to me as "molto antico." Therefore an underground stream - in diminished volume, no doubt - still descends from the heights.

Thirdly, in the village you will notice an alley leading out of the Corso Manfredi (one rejoices to find the name of Manfred surviving in these lands) - an alley which is entitled "Vico Sirene." The name arrests your attention, for what have the Sirens to do in these inland regions? Nothing whatever, unless they existed as ornamental statuary:

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