"First of all, it is necessary that I protest that I do not intend, with this letter, to alter or put into question the much reasoned system (...)

I will only say that the mountain, of which I speak, does not recognize its beginning from a simple explosion of underground fire (...) as so many in other places (...) but that it has been a perennial volcano, and that it has once had all its phases, as we have today by all those who are in action.

This mountain, therefore, which can be seen as an island, separated from the chain of the Apennines, exists within the borders of ancient Lucania and Apulia (...)".