8 Historical 



views, or merely vanity, depressions called cols allow many travel- 

 lers at certain points to cross the principal chain from Switzerland 

 or France to Italy. These passes are generally very high. The best 

 known and the highest are: in the Maritime Alps, the passes of 

 Tende (1870 meters), of Longet (3150 meters), of the Argentiere 

 (1905 meters), and of Maurin (2980 meters); in the Cottian Alps, 

 the passes of Traversette (2995 meters), of the Agnello (2700 

 meters), of Sayse (3360 meters), of Mount Genevre (1850 meters); 

 in the Graies Alps, the pass of Mount Cenis (2080 meters) , and of 

 the Little Saint-Bernard (2160 meters) ; in the Pennine Alps, the 

 pass of the Grand Saint-Bernard (2490 meters) , that of the Geant 

 (3360 meters) , of the Seigne (2530 meters) , the pass of Balme (2200 

 meters) , the pass of Saint-Theodule (3320 meters) ; in the Helvetian 

 Alps, the Simplon pass (2020 meters), the pass of Gemmi (2300 

 meters), the pass of Grimsel (2160 meters), that of the Fourca 

 (2460 meters), of the Saint-Gothard (2110 meters), of Bernardin 

 (2060 meters) , etc. The road of the Valteline, the highest carriage 

 road in Europe, crosses the pass of Stelvio at 2810 meters, going 

 from the basin of the Po to that of the Danube. 



Along the Adriatic, the Alps continue by the mountains of 

 Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia, with the Balkans at the north 

 and on the south the Rhodope mountains and the chain of Pindus 

 which gives birth to the hills of Greece. In these very hilly regions, 

 the summits of which are however not very high, we need mention 

 only the Dormitor (2260 meters) in Herzegovina, the Kom (2290 

 meters) in Montenegro, the Kriwosta (2440 meters) in Roumania; 

 then the giant of the Rhodope mountains, the Rilo Dagh (2815 

 meters), and finally the mountains of Greece of which we have 

 already spoken. 



The Danube, which receives the waters of the north slope of 

 the Alps, rises in the mountain group of the Black Forest, in which 

 there are a few peaks of moderate height; after running towards 

 the east, it encounters the chain of the Carpathians, in which there 

 are such peaks as the Tatra (2655 meters), the Gailuripi (2925 

 meters), the Ruska-Poyana (3020 meters), and which pushes it 

 towards the south. 



The mountains of the interior of France have no interest for us 

 from the standpoint of our present purpose, since the highest, 

 Mount Dore, is only 1890 meters high; the little chain which crosses 

 Corsica is more interesting; its highest point, Mount Cinto, rises to 

 2710 meters. 



But the Pyrenees, in a length of 150 kilometers and a maximum 



