Carts or groups of carriers bearing other coffins were continually arriving. It was impossible for the grave diggers to keep up with their task and the grass for a long distance about was covered with the waiting boxes. A special cemetery was set apart for the burial of the unidentified dead. In this cemetery pits about thirty feet long, twelve feet wide and six feet deep were prepared and the boxes were stacked in them in tiers, about one hundred boxes to each pit. By the middle of March about twenty-five hundred unidentified bodies had been buried in this cemetery. The condition of the bodies taken from the ruins at this late date and the oncoming of hot weather made it imperative that all possible haste should be insisted upon. No ceremony whatever accompanied the burial or the preparation for it. Bodies were placed in the boxes the moment they were exhumed from the ruins, a little later were placed on carts and driven directly to the cemetery. _Extent of the Disaster._ It is unnecessary here to speak at length upon the extent of the disaster. The earthquake affected a strip of land on each side of the Straits of Messina. The extreme dimensions of the affected area were about fifty miles from North to South and perhaps forty miles from East to West. Within this area no town or village escaped entire or partial destruction. In all more than fifty cities, towns, villages and communes were destroyed. The lowest estimate which I heard of the number of persons made homeless was five hundred thousand. Estimates of the dead range from one hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand. In the course of my travels about the region I visited about twenty-five cities, towns and villages, among them all the larger ones. Wherever I went I inquired of the local authorities, who seemed best informed, concerning the loss of life. Based upon the answers to these inquiries and my own observations, I have reached the conclusion that the estimates of the number of dead have been uniformly too large. When the final estimates are made, after all bodies have been accounted for, I doubt whether the total will exceed seventy-five thousand. I have seen no estimate of the property loss and it is doubtful whether any approximately accurate estimate can be made. Neither have I seen any figures of the amount of insurance carried on property but the result of inquiries indicates that the total insurance was comparatively small. The Italian people do not seem to have very fully adopted the policy of insuring their property. Unless such insurance as was held covered loss by earthquake, the owners of property can, in any event, collect little, if anything, from the insurance companies. The poverty of this part of Italy, coupled with the overwhelming magnitude of the loss, both of property and life, must make recovery exceedingly slow. The Italian Government is preparing to introduce measures of great liberality intended to help the people re-establish themselves.