Dr. Du Riche Preller — The Carrara Marble District. 555 



marble beds are situated, covers about 25 by 13 kilometres or about 

 130 square miles, of which the marble zone proper represents 64 square 

 miles or about half. The range is bounded on the north by the 

 Aullela valley in the Lunigiana district; x on the east by the Serchio 

 valley in the Garfagnana district ; and on the south by the Serchio 

 valley in the Province of Lucca. The marble district, whose western 

 part faces the Mediterranean, comprises the three divisions of Carrara, 

 Massa, and the Versilia in the corresponding parallel valleys of the 

 Carrione, Frigido, and Serravezza Rivers. The Yersilia division, 

 which forms part of the Province of Lucca, is composed of the 

 Seravezza, Stazzema, and Arni subdivisions, of which the last-named 

 lies on the eastern watershed of the Apuan range. The Versilia 

 division also includes Pietrasanta, Camajore, Massarosa, and the well- 

 known watering-place of Viareggio, near the last-named of which are 

 situated extensive subaqueous deposits" of a peculiarly coarse-grained, 

 sharp macigno sand. These deposits, formed as a delta in a lacustrine 

 expanse by the River Serchio, constitute an important and indispensable 

 adjunct of the marble industry as grinding material for the numerous 

 marble saw-mills in the three parallel valleys already referred to. 



Tip to 1880 parts of the marble district had been investigated 

 chiefly by Savi, Coquand, Cocchi, and De Stefani, whose views were 

 in part concordant, in part conflicting ; but it was only subsequently, 

 in the early 'eighties, that the systematic and comprehensive geological 

 survey of the entire range of the Apuan Alps was carried out by Lotti 

 and Zaccagna, of the Royal Italian Mining and Geological Department, 

 under the direction of Professor Meneghini, of Pisa. This survey was 

 completed in the 'nineties by the publication of the Geological Contour 

 Map of 1 : 25,000 (2-54 inches per mile), together with numerous 

 sections. It was in the period of that survey that the present 

 writer had his professional headquarters in the district for several 

 years, during which he acquired an intimate knowledge of every part 

 of it 3 and had frequent opportunities of discussing and verifying the 

 conclusions of those distinguished geologists. 3 It will, therefore, not 

 be out of place to briefly review the outstanding features of that 

 unique and justly famed district from personal experience and 

 observation. 



II. 'Physiogjraphical Features. 



If the range of the Apuan Alps could be reconstructed as it was 

 after its being raised in Miocene times, it would represent a flat 



1 Lunigiana was the ancient Koman Luna district, the Carrara marble being 

 then called Marrnor Lunensis. The Apuan Alps were inhabited by a warlike 

 tribe, the Apuani, subdued by the Komans 180 B.C. 



2 In a prize paper, Proc. Inst. Giv. Eng., vol. ciii, 1891, "The Carrara 

 Marble District Eailway," the author gave a summary description of the district. 



3 The Memoirs and Notes on the district by Lotti and Zaccagna in the 

 Bollettino del R. Comitato Geologico d'ltalia are the following: — 



B. Lotti : vol. 1881, pp. 1, 85, 419 ; and Carta Geol. d'ltalia, 1910, p. 372. 



D. Zaccagna: vol. 1880; vol. 1881, pp. 1, 476; vol. 1896, p. 214. 



B. Lotti is now Chief Engineer of the Boyal Mining and Geological Depart- 

 ment, Borne. Cav. D. Zaccagna is Resident Engineer of the same Department 

 and Director of the Mining Institute of Carrara ; he is himself a Carrarese who 

 has, in the words of Dante, " tra bianchi marmi la sua dimora." 



