TRAVELS IN BRAZIL 



Pola, which made us better acquainted with the 

 interesting peninsula of Istria. The mountains, 

 which run from north to south, consist, like the 

 other parts of the country, of floetz lime-stone, 

 and are of the same formation as the Karst, that 

 desolate ridge of mountains, remarkable for its 

 rugged clefts, which runs, several leagues in 

 breadth, from the district of Gorz, in the direction 

 from W. N. W. to E. S. E., to the shores of the 

 gulf of Fiume, and thence southwards to Croatia. 

 Large and small caverns and vesicular cavities, 

 holes, and ravines, which frequently give the 

 mountain the appearance of having been washed 

 by the rains ; petrifications, such as Afnmonites, 

 Gryphites, Terebratulites, which, how^ever, are not 

 so common in the Istrian peninsula as on the con- 

 tinent, and in the islands of the Golfo di Quarnero, 

 a compact fine grain, large conchoidal fracture 

 fragments, indeterminately angular and sharp-edged, 

 absence of metal, and a whitish-yellow or reddish- 

 grey colour, characterise this lime-stone, which 

 constitutes the chief formation, not only of the 

 peninsula, but of all the islands in the gulf of 

 Quarnero, and of the mountain chain in the north 

 of Croatia. It is said that there are in the j)enin- 

 sula, especially in the northern part, several large 

 caverns which have never been explored, an accu- 

 rate investigation of which might afford interesting 

 results respecting the fossile remains of animals 

 found in the islands of Osero and Cherso, and still 



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