510 THE TUSCAN MAREMMA. 



Irrvprovements in the Tusccm Marem/ma, 



In the improvements of the Tuscan Maremma, formidable 

 difficulties have been encountered. The territory to be re- 

 claimed was extensive ; the salubrious places of retreat for labor- 

 ers and inspectors were remote ; the courses of the rivers to be 

 controlled were long and their natural inclination not rapid ; 

 some of them, rising in wooded regions, transported compara- 

 tively little earthy matter,* and above all, the coast, which is a 

 recent deposit of the waters, is little elevated above the sea, and 

 admits into its lagoons and the mouths of its rivers floods of salt- 

 water with every western wind, every rising tide.f 



poisonous miasmata. Other theories, however, have been proposed. The 

 whole subject is fully and ably discussed by Dr. Salvagnoli Marchetti in the 

 appendix to his valuable Bapporto sul Boniflcamento delle Maremme Toscane. 

 See also the Memorie Economico-Statistiche sulle Maremme Toscane of the same 

 author. A different view of this subject is taken by Raffanini and Or- 

 LANDENi in Analisi Storico-Fisico-Economica sulV insalubritd nelle Maremme 

 Toscane, Firenze, 1869. See also the important memoir of D. Pantaleoni, 

 Dd Miasma vegetale e delle Malattie Miasmatiche, in which the views of Sal- 

 vagnoli on this point are combated. 



* This diiflculty has been remedied — though with doubtful general advan- 

 tage — as to one important river of the Maremma, the Pecora, by clearings 

 recently executed along its upper course. " The condition of this marsh and 

 of its affluents is now, November, 1859, much changed, and it is advisable 

 to prosecute its improvement by deposits. In consequence of the extensive 

 felling of the woods upon the plains, hills and mountains of the territory of 

 Massa and Scarlino, vpithin the last ten years, the Pecora and other afflu- 

 ents of the marsh receive, during the rains, water abundantly charged with 

 slime, so that the deposits within the first division of the marsh are already 

 considerable, and we may now hope to see the whole marsh and pond filled 

 up in a much shorter time than we had a right to expect before 1850. This 

 circumstance totally changes the terms of the question, because the filling of 

 the marsh and pond, which tnen seemed almost impossible on account of the 

 small amount of sediment deposited by the Pecora, has now become practi- 

 cable." — Salvagnoli, Rapporto sul Boniflcamento delle Maremma Toscane, pp. 

 li., lii. 



Between 1830 and 1859 more than 36,000,000 cubic yards of sediment were 

 deposited in the marsh and shoal-water lake of Castiglione alone. — Salvag- 

 noli, Raccolta di Documenti, pp. 74, 75. 



f The tide rises ten inches on the coast of Tuscany. See Memoir by Fan 

 TONT, in the appendix to Salvagnoli, Bapporto, p. 189. 



On the tides of the Mediterranean see Bottger, Das Mittelmeer, p. 190. 



