88 Oil the Constitution of the Territory of' Rome, with 



constitutions. As far as we yet know, the chain of the Appe- 

 nines, throughout the greatest part of their mass, is a uniform 

 limestone range, of great thickness. The steep rocky walls of 

 TivoU, which rise immediately from the plain to the height 

 of 2000 feet, are formed throughout of the same light grey com- 

 pact limestone, with few petrifactions, which forms on the one 

 side the mountains of Pcsaru and Urbino, and on the other 

 side the plains of Apulia, as far as the point of Otranto. Ac- 

 cording to the comprehensive description which Brocchi* has 

 given it, this limestone is decidedly a member of the secondary 

 or floetz series ; it is identical with that of the opposite shore of 

 Dalmatia, and with the southern chain of calcareous Alps, which 

 bounds the plains of Lombardy, along the districts of Covio, 

 Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, <^c. and, which Breislak (Geologia 

 di Milano) has described in the hills of Brianza, in the plain 

 of Milan. On that account, it most probably belongs to the 

 Jura formation, and in part to the chalk series ; which, as it is the 

 newest, so is without doubt the most extensive and thickest of all 

 the secondary formations on the surface of the earth. In its 

 north and south part ; in the Tuscan territory, and even in the 

 more northern part of the States of the Church ; as well as at the 

 opposite extremity in the mountains of Calabria ; this extensive 

 secondary deposite is seen reposing on undoubted transition and 

 primitive rocks. These fundamental rocks, the basis of the 

 high mountain chain, all appear on the Mediterranean side, and 

 therefore bound the floetz formations on the side opposite to the 

 Adriatic Sea. But this relation is by no means confined to the 

 two extremities of the Italian Peninsula, but even in the inter- 

 mediate districts it has a considerable influence on the formation 

 of the country, d)c more exact knowledge of which we owe to 

 the talents and industry of the celebrated Brocchi. According 

 to him, it is a general rule in this region, that wherever the hilly 

 plains on the Mediterranean side expose the basis of the coun- 

 try, more ancient rocks appear immediately at the surface, un- 

 covered by the Appenine limestone. Here the shore of the sea 

 of Liguria, where the transition mountains stand in evident con- 

 nexion with the principal mass of the Appcnines, the members 

 of this formation are almost every where seen on ihc Tuscan 



* Concbiliologia Fossilc Subaj'pcnin.T. i- i'. 23-33. 



