290 Professor T. G. Bonney & Rev. H. H. Winwood — 



§ The Carrara Mountains, also called the Apuan Alps, are a short 

 range of hold peaks rising abruptly from the Apennines to a height 

 of some 6,000 feet above sea-level, in striking contrast with the tamer 

 scenery of the coastal zone. Their steeper slopes are deeply gashed 

 by valleys and carved into spurs, on one of which, between the Maira 

 and the Serchio, lie the noted quarries of Carrara and Massa. These, 

 with others in the district, are high up on the mountain side ; the 

 slopes of white debris at a distance resembling snow, and increasing 

 the likeness to an outlier of the Alps. Mr. Winwood, with Professor 

 Boyd Dawkins, began by visiting quarries, of which one furnishes the 

 ordinary clear white Carrara marble, called Marmo Siciliano, 1 used in 

 architecture and for common statuary, and the other a kind still 

 better adapted for the latter purpose, which also has been employed 

 in Trajan's Column and the Pantheon at Rome. 2 Prom these they 

 passed on to quarries in the Piastra Valley, which supply the Marmo 

 Statuario, the use of which is signified by the name, and then to 

 others (at a lower level) which yield the Marmo Bardiglio, bluish in 

 colour, and sometimes varied by dark veins. On the following day 

 they went to quarries in glens leading down to the Bedizzano Valley, 

 of which some had been worked by the Romans. These also furnish 

 good white marble ; the highest point reached, a quarry at La Gioija, 

 being at an altitude of about 1,900 feet. In descending to the 

 Colonata Valley, they obtained a good continuous section of the rocks 

 (in ascending order) which is represented in the annexed diagram, 

 copied from a rough sketch by Professor Boyd Dawkins, the basal 

 line running from about 624 feet to 1,400 feet above the sea. 



Fig. 1. — Diagram of Strata in Colonata Valley. 

 1. Conglomerate (Becent). 2. Crushed Sericite Schist. 3. Micaceous Schist 

 (Bedizzano Valley). 4. Veined Sicilian Marble (910 feet). 5. Pavonazzo 

 Marble. 6. Bardiglio Marble (Torone 1,241 feet). 7. Sicilian Marble. 

 8. Schist (Colonata Valley). 



On this section Mr. "Winwood remarks that the beds apparently 

 dip at a high angle (in some instances they are nearly vertical), but 

 that it was sometimes difficult to ascertain whether this was true dip 

 or cleavage. In one quarry (Ravaccione) the signs of crushing are 

 very marked ; these could be seen in other places, as well as signs of 

 faulting, but the intercalation of the marble in the schists appeared 

 to be indubitable. 



1 So called, I have been informed, because at one time it was conveyed to 

 Sicily and exported thence to other places. — T. G. B. 



2 There are other quarries of different varieties of marble, one important 

 group being near Seravezza, to the south-east of Carrara and Massa. See 

 Vasari on Technique, edited by G. B. Brown, 1907, pp. 45-8 and 119-26. 



