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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Cephalonia, and this is continued to the northern extremity of 
the island, though broken asunder by the Gulf of Samos. The 
ridge of Ithaca extends northward into Santa Maura, broken 
by the channel between the two islands, but indicated by the 
smaller island of Arkudi between them. It culminates in 
Stavrota and St. Elia, the two highest points in Santa Maura. 
From this the axis continues, and though again broken by a 
narrow interval, is traceable into the mainland of Acaruania. 
The whole of this line of mountain country may be regarded 
as in a general sense parallel to the direction of high ground 
in southern Greece ; but the elevations generally are much less 
considerable. 
The character of the mountain ranges is not precisely the 
same in the different islands. Thus, the Black Mountain pre- 
sents a very well-marked series of ridges all nearly of the same 
height, while Stavrota and St. Elia, in Santa Maura, Santi 
Deca, and St. Elia, in Corfu, and Yrachiona, in Zante, are 
separate pyramidal' peaks, and San Salvador with Maviona, in 
Corfu, are two culminating pyramids at the extremities of a 
high east and west ridge. On the whole, it will best explain 
the physical conditions to describe each island as either con- 
sisting of or including a high plateau, with occasional higher 
ridges, while Cephalonia, in addition, presents a sharp, central 
ridge. 
Of valleys, the most remarkable and exceptional forms have 
been already described in the first part of this article. They 
are repeated, with some variation, in all the islands. Valleys 
of the ordinary kind are hardly to be seen, except in Santa 
Maura and Cephalonia, though small instances also exist in 
Zante. Corfu is singularly without anything of the kind, 
except in the northern district, where they are very small. 
On the whole, then, it will be evident that the physical 
geography of the Ionian Islands, considered as a group, is 
well worthy of notice. These islands are especially remarkable 
as illustrating all the characteristic peculiarities of limestone 
rock, referring to the forms of the land, the natural drainage, 
the climate, the weathering by atmospheric exposure, and some 
very singular local phenomena. There are probably very few 
accessible districts in which so great and instructive a variety 
of such scenery is to be met with, and nowhere in Europe is 
there better opportunity for the geologist to observe the effect 
of natural causes of change on calcareous rock. With the 
exception of soft, friable chalk, almost all the varieties of the 
mineral are met with, from hardened chalk through limestone 
to marble on the one side, and through the varieties of marl to 
gypsum and alabaster on the other. Limestone masses, limestone 
beds, limestone conglomerates, limestone and marble veins, and 
