THE FORMER EXTENSION OF GLACIERS. 
139 
The blueness of the sky, moreover, the brilliancy of 
colouring, the variety and richness of the vegetation, 
give the moraine scenery of Italy an exquisite beauty 
with which the north can scarcely vie. Each great 
valley opening on the plain of Lombardy has its own 
moraine. At the lower end of the Lago Maggiore 
at Sesto-Calende are three enormous concentric 
moraines.* Those of the Lake of Garda are perhaps 
the largest. They form a series of concentric hills, 
and attain a height of 300 metres, but those at 
Ivrea, at the opening of the Val d’ Aosta, due to the 
great glacier proceeding from the south flanks of the 
Mont Blanc range, are the highest and most impos- 
ing. They form an amphitheatre round Ivrea. That 
on the east, known as the “Serra,” runs in nearly a 
straight line from Andrate to Cavaglio, is twenty 
miles long, and has a height above the valley of 
500 metres. The summit line is very uniform. On 
the outer or eastern side of the great moraine are 
several other minor ridges. At the right a similar, 
but less elevated moraine, stretches from Brosso to 
Strambinello, but it is not so conspicuous, as it rests 
against the side of the mountain. From Strambinello 
to Cavaglio it forms a great semicircle which once 
* Martins and Gastaldi, “Essai sur les terrains sup. de la 
Vallee du Po,” Bull. Soc. Ge'ol. de France. 1850. 
