Fkbbuabt 1, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



48 



buried Alps may be destined to play their part in 

 Europe. 



Tho frequency of eai'thquakes in the area under con- 

 sideration shows at least a condition of unrest, lu 

 Agram, the Croatian capital, shocks arc felt about twice 

 a year ; and the city was in great part destroyed on 

 November 9th, 18S0. Still more recent examples arc 

 the Bosnian earthquake of 1891; the great Servian 

 shocks in 1S93 ; the destructive earthquake of Laibach 

 on April 14th, 1895, when twenty-five shocks were felt, 

 and when tremors were noted at Vienna and Trieste, 

 at Salzburg, and at Agrani in the east. In 1897, 

 Laibach was visited by a smaller, but also destructive, 

 earthquake ; and a comp ete series of observatories 

 would probably reveal, as Dr. C. Davison has remarked, 

 the extreme instability of the region that stretches 

 from Kai-inthia to Constantinople. 



At present, the alluvial features of the Drava Valley 

 give Verasdin the appearance of a city in a plain. But 

 in the south a long range of wooded hills can be de- 

 sciied, a welcome change from the bare Hungarian levels. 

 These broken ridges, in parts as lofty as the Grampian.?, 

 lie in the direct line of the Carnic Alps of Tyrol and 

 Venetia. Now and again, as we cross them, a little 

 scarp of grey limestone among the trees serves as a 

 reminder of the superb rock-giants that gather on the 

 wall of Italy. But the peaks of Cortina and the canons 

 of Auronzo are remote indeed from this warm and cul- 

 tivated upland. The clustered woods give way to parks 

 and farmlands ; there is one more pass, with a show of 

 romantic interest, whereby we rise to 208 metres, or 

 not quite 700 feet above the sea; and then we have a 

 long fall to the valley of the Sava, and the crossing of 

 the Alps is an accomplished fact. In a traverse of 

 some forty miles, we have ascended, as it were, to the 

 level of the Surrey Downs, and have completed our 

 passage of one of the structural lines of Europe. 



The diversity of rocks, however, in this model of '^lie 

 Alps, hcis given us a corresponding change of scenery ; 

 and the noble Sliemen range above Agram in no way 

 disappoints the eye. Even the crystalline schists of 

 the core crop out at the north-east end of it, flanked 

 by little patches of Cretaceous limestone, such as are 

 uptilted in Switzerland to form heroic crags. It is 

 evening as we come down into Agram, in the shadow 

 of these steep grey hills ; and far away in the west we 

 can see the huge ridges of the limestone Alps them- 

 selves, a vision of pxirple and pale gold, against the lurid 

 glory of the sunset. 



Next morning we cross the Sava, on a long bridge 

 that seems to lead into a limitless expanse of level cul- 

 tivated land. The river flows through its own brown 

 alluvium, a mere magnification of the Raba, or the 

 Leitha, or other streams that open out on the fringe 

 of the Hungarian plain. Once in a while a hamlet, or 

 one of the old eastern wells, provides an incident for 

 the eye ; elsewhere we move between the maize-crops, 

 their stems seven or eight feet high, effectually walling 

 in the road. Sometimes in the open, we see the clouds 

 gathering on the fine mass of the Sliemen, and the 

 towers of Agram falling back behind us in the shade. 

 And yet this Sava has also had its day of strength and 

 energy. For it rises in a wild and craggy highland, 

 close against the valley of the Gail ; the limestone 

 fortress of the Mangart guards it from the southern 

 sun ; and the great grey blocks, split by frost from 

 the wall of Italy, form the first boulders in its stream. 

 A straight line from its source to Agram, where it 

 leaves the highlands, measures two hundred kilometres. 



or more than one hundred and twenty miles. 



Through southern Croatia, tho villages are artifi- 

 cially protected from Hoods, and the roads along the 

 rivers run upon embankments. The same pre- 

 cautions, often futile, have to bo taken here, as in the 

 Danube plain itself. The bends of the river are thus, 

 through artificial aid, a little more stable than they 

 were in former times, and strenuous efforts arc made to 

 keep the water within bounds. Beyond Sisek, the old 

 loops and backwaters become more frequent, and 

 strangely curved villages divci-sify the scene, their form 

 having been originally dictated by bends of the river 

 which has deserted them. Elsewhere, the houses cluster 

 along the first terrace of the hills, their bases washed 

 by the alluvium, as by a sea; the great highway of 

 the " military frontier " runs towards Turkey on tho 

 outcrop of the Pliocene strata, and the villages have 

 grown out along it from north-west to south-east, until 

 some of them stretch for five kilometres along the road. 

 The great flat between them and the river is given over 

 to marsh-land and rak forest (Fig. 2); and the coun- 



FlG. 2. In the Oak-Forest of Vukovina, alluvium of the Sava. 



try has a poor and desolate air, much as if it were still 

 swept by the Turkish irregulars of a hundred years 

 ago. The only offshoots of these elongated villages lie 

 in the tiny valleys of the lateral streams, where huts 

 piled indiscriminately, and half hidden in the trees, 

 climb up along convenient watercourses. 



When, at any point, we have to cross tho alluvial 

 plain, we may feel at once the sheltei-less nature of the 

 country. All the morning, the storm has been creeping 

 nearer. The black gloom that gathered in the Agram 

 hills has blotted out tho distance with terrific and truly 

 inky thunder-clouds. As we turn round, kilometre 

 after kilometre, we can feel the sunlight being swept 

 from the face of heaven ; the earth lies still ; even the 

 great oak-forest, from which we have emerged, is only 

 just beginning to tremble in its topmost leaves. But 

 now the first wind touches us, the first drops begin to 

 fall; the whole life of the country is at once in motion, 

 fleeing along the road, where the dust is whirled up 

 strangely amid the rain. Hailstones descend, at least 

 an inch across, and break themselves to pieces on the 

 ground. Horses, cowe, poultry, white-kerchiefed girls, 



