Prof. Hausmann''s Sketches of South European Nature. 3^9 



sea. On the contrary, the other parts of the Apennines, as to 

 individual summits, may indeed reach a height of 6000 feet ; 

 but, in general, are not higher than from 3000 to 4000 feet. 



The calcareous Apennines would undoubtedly be more uni- 

 form in their contour, and resemble the Jura range, which 

 consists of a similar principal formation, were not the relations of 

 their strata in a high degree various and irregular. As in the 

 Jura range, thd long parallel ridges of the high arched strata 

 with parallel axes correspond ; and it is only in the transverse 

 rocky valleys and ravines, that we find more variety in the phy- 

 siognomy of the mountains. So, in a great part of the Apen^ 

 nines, the various changes in position, in the curvature, and in 

 the trough and saddle shapes of the strata, form evidently one 

 of the principal causes of the great variety in the form of the 

 mountains and rocks, as well as of the shape, direction, and con- 

 nexions of the valleys. 



But Middle Italy also in another respect exhibits great 

 variety in its external formation. At the foot of the moun- 

 tain chain, masses appear heaved up by subterranean agency, and 

 partly distributed by water, which, in form and internal struc- 

 ture, are different altogether from the Apennine range. The 

 mountains of Bolsena and Viterbo, the hills and plain of Rome, 

 the mountains of Albano, and beyond all the summit of Vesu- 

 vius, giving vent to smoke, and occasionally to fire and lava ; all 

 these attest an activity, which is partly extinguished and partly 

 continues to operate, and is completely disallied from that which 

 occasioned the limestone formation, and the separation and bend- 

 ing of its strata. 



It will be at once allowed, that such a difference in the com- 

 position of the solid masses, which are the foundation of the cul- 

 tivateable soil, must have an influence equally various upon the 

 nature of the soil, and, by means of the soil, on the whole of the 

 vegetation, as well as on the individual cultivated plants. The 

 soil of the valley of the Po, which is partly of loam and partly 

 of sand, and is formed by extensive alluvial washing and gra- 

 dual deposition therefrom, shows, upon the whole, more uni- 

 form relations than the soil deposited upon the declivities in the 

 valleys, and at the foot of the Apennine chain. Among the 



