58 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xill. 



capable of containing all the navies of Europe, and that is 

 all. But after passing Spezzia, troubles cease. The 

 country is more open, those 70 tunnels in 80 miles come 

 nearly to an end. You can open the window again and 

 breathe freely, without being stifled by the heat or 

 suffocated by the black sulphurous smoke of the engine. 



At last Avenza, in the Duchies of Massa and Carrara, is 

 reached, and the mighty range of the Apennines, with 

 their worn and rifted summits rising more than 5000 feet, 

 opens out on the left. White streaks run down their 

 sides from the summits, which may easily be mistaken 

 for snow. They are the debris of the marble quarries — 

 records of the wasteful method of working for thousands 

 of years. 



Carrara 



A branch line from Avenza, three miles in length, 

 following the course of the now dry torrent bed of the 

 Carrione, lands us finally at the town of Carrara, or rather 

 just outside its barrier gate. Two Italian friends, Messrs 

 Robson and Pelliccia, who met us at the station, passed us 

 quickly by the sentinel on guard, giving the assurance 

 that we had nothing contraband, and conducted us to the 

 comfortable Hotel de la Poste, where our plans for the 

 morrow's visit to the quarries were matured. A short 

 walk in the evening through the town and up the valley 

 of the Torano* on the west, gave sufficient proof of the 

 industry carried on. Everywhere was marble — white, 

 glaring white, houses, road-metal, road-dust, workmen's 

 clothes, all was as marble in some form or other, consoli- 

 dated in large blocks, or triturated into fine impalpable 

 powder. 



* The Torano Valley, on the west, seems to be the boundary line of the true marble, 

 as the strata which we examined with our hammers, much to the curiosity of the women, 

 were apparently Triassic beds very crumpled up. 



