Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/170

 154 APENNINUS. form of the name might lead vA to snspect, is tm- certain: bnt the more extensive use of the name is fully established, when it first appears in histoiy. The general ieatores and direction of the chain are well described both by PoljHns and Strabo, who speak of the Apennines as extending from their junction with the Alps in an unbndcen nmge almost to the Adriatic Sea; bnt turning off as they ap- proached the coast (in the neighbouxhood of Arimi- num and Ancona), and extending from thence throughout the whole length of Italy, through Samnium, Lucania, and Bruttium, until they ended at the promontory of Leuoopetra, on the Scilian Sea. Polybius adds, that throughout their course frc«n the plains of the Padus to their southern ex- tremity they fonned the dividing ridge between the waters which flowed respectively to ^e Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas. The same thing is stated by Lucan, whose poetical description of the Apennines is at the same time distinguished by geographical accuracy. (Pol. ii. 16, iii. 110;-Stiub. ii. pk 128, ▼. p. 211; PtoLiii. l.§ 44; Lucan. IL 396—438; Claudian. de VL Cons. Hon, 286.) But an accu- rate knowledge of the course and physical characters of this range of mountains is so necessary to the clear comprehension of the geography of Italy, and the history of the nations that inhalHted the diffe- rent provinces of the peninsula, that it will be de- simble to give in this ^ace a more detailed aceount of the physical geography of the Apennines. There was much difference of opinion among ancient, as well as modem, geographers, in regard to the point they assigned for the commencement of the Apennines, or rather for thdr junction wiUi the Alps, of which they may, in fact, be considered only as a great offshoot. Polybius describes the Apennines as extending almost to the neighbourhood of Massilia, so that he must have comprised under this appellation all that part of the Maritime Alps, which extend along the sea-ooast to the west of Genoa, and even beyond Nice towards Marseilles. Other writers fixed on the port of Hereules Monoecus {JHonaoo) as the point of demarcation : but Strabo extends the name of the Maritime Alps as far £. as Vada Sabbata ( Vado)f and says that the Apennines begin about Genoa: a distinction apparently in ao- conlance with the usage of the Romans, who fre- quently apply the nam« of the Maritime Alps to the country of the Ingauni, about Albenga. (Liv. xxviii. 46; Tac. Hist. ii. 12.) Nearly the same distinction has been adopted by the best modem geographers, who have regarded the Apennines as commencing from the neighbourhood of Savona^ Im- mediatdy at the back of which the range is so low that the pass between that city and Carcare^ in the valley of the Bormida, does not exceed the height of 1300 feet. But the limit must, in any case, be an arbitrary one: there is no real break or inter- ruption of the mountain chain. The mountains be- hind Genoa itself are still of very moderate elevation, but after that the range increases rapidly in height, as well as breadth, and extends in a broad unbmken mass almost in a direct line (in an £S£. direction) till it approaches the const of the Adriatic. Through- out this part of its course the range forms the southern limit of the great plain of Northern Italy, srhich extends without interraption from the foot of the Apennines to that of the Alps. Its highest summits attain an elevation of 5000 or 6000 feet, while its average height ranges between 3000 and 4000 feet Its northern declivity presents a re- APENNINUS. markable uniformity : the long ranges of hills which descend from t^e central chain, nearly at right angles to its direction, constantly approaching within a few miles of the straight line of the Via Aemilia throughout its whde length from Ariminnm to Placentia, but without ever crossing it On its southoii side, on the contrary, it sends out eevend. detached arms, or lateral raises, some of which attain to an elevation little inferior to that of the central chain. Such is the lofty and rugged range which separates the vailies of the Macra and Auser (SsrcAio), and contuns the cetebrated marble quar- ries of Carrara ; the behest point of which (the Pueo dUeceUo) is not less than 5800 feet abore the sea. Similar ridges, though of somewhat less elevation, divide the upper and lower vailies of the Amus firom each other, as well as that of the TSkt from the fonner. But after approaching within a short distance of the Adriatic, so as to send down its lower slopes iKithin a few miles of Ariminum, the cbun of the Apennines suddenly takes a turn to the SSE., and assumes a direction parallel to the coast of the Adriatic, which it presenres, with little alteration, to the frontiers of Lucania. It is in this part of the range that all the highest summits of the Apennxnes are found: the Mond ddla SSbiHa^ in which are the sources of the Nar {Nero) rise to a height of 7200 feet above the sea, while the MonU Como, or Gran Sa$so d Italia, near AquUa, the loftiest summit of the whole chain, attains to an elevation of 9500 feet A little further S. is the Monte Majella, a huge mountain mass between Suhno and the coast of the Adriatic, not less than 9000 feet in height, while the Monte VeUno, N. of the Lake Fueinus, and nearly in the centre of the peninsula, attains to 8180 feet, and the Monte TertnimHo, near Leonusa, NE. of Rieti, to above 7000 feet. It is especially in these Central Apennines that the peculiar features of the chain develope themselves. Instead of presenting, like the Alps and the mm« northern Apennines, one great uniform ridge, with transverse vailies leading down fixnn it toTwds the sea on each side, the Central Apennines constitute a mountain mass of very considerable breadth, com- posed of a number of minor ranges and groups of mountains, which, notwithstanding great irregula- rities and variations, preserve a general parallelisin of direction, and are separated by upland valfies, some of which are themselves of oonsideiable ele- vation and extm each other and from the basin of the Fueinus. Another peculiarity of the Apennines is that the loftiest summits scarcely em- form a continuons or connected range of any great extent, the highest groups being frequently separated by ridges of comparatively small elevation, whicii aiford in consequence natural passes across the chain. Indeed, the two loftiest mountain masses of the whole, the Gran Saseo, and the MajeUa, do not belong to the central or main range of the Apen- nuies at all, if this be reckoned in the customary- manner along the line of the water-shed between the two seas. As the Apennuies deaoend into SBxnK