THE CARRARA MARBLE QUARRIES 



BY 



Rf.v. H. H. WINWOOD, M.A., Vice-Pres. Geol. Soc. 



(Read February 2 1st, 1899) 



These notes are the result ot a visit to the marble 

 quarries of Carrara last year, with a genial companion, no 

 mean authority in geological matters. Prof. Boyd Dawkins. 

 Leaving behind us that city of palaces, Genoa la Superba, 

 in the glorious sunshine of an autumn morning, we took 

 the train to Avenza, the junction for Carrara. Much has 

 been written about the beauties of the road between Genoa 

 and Pisa — the far-famed Riviera di Levante ; and luckv are 

 those travellers who, before the days of the iron way, 

 followed the devious but picturesque route along the 

 carriage road, for the railway line is the most disagreeable 

 of all I have travelled. On this lovely coast it is reasonable 

 to expect seascapes and landscapes far surpassing those 

 pretty peeps on the Exeter and Torquay Hne ; but nothing 

 of the sort. Landwards a glimpse is caught of the 

 wooded heights with a picturesque Italian villa embosomed 

 amidst tropical foliage. You try to remember what tree 

 or shrub it is growing so luxuriantly and to such a height, 

 familiar to you in a dwarfed greenhouse or hothouse 

 form, when you are shot into a tunnel. You take the 

 other side of the carriage, and think you must certainly 

 be rewarded by a sight of the blue waters of the Mediter- 

 ranean, just catch a peep of the wavelets gently laving the 

 sunny shore, when another tunnel, and into the darkness 

 you go. ^Vell, in any case the gulf of Spezzia, the Portus 

 Lunense, must be seen. If you are very quick you may 

 just catch the glinting of the waters of that celebrated bay 

 E 



