Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/210

162 the breadth of the peninsula, from its northern coast. Again, from Monte St. Angelo, just above Amalfi, to a point approaching the Adriatic coast, some miles south-east of Bari, a transverse ridge stretches nearly west to east and from sea to sea, and which bending southward, to the north of Taranto, continues with decreasing development, down into the extremity of Otranto.

Returning to Monte Acuto, the great central ridge is continued, in a direction almost due north and south, for nearly 150 miles, and then stretches in a waving line, down to the southern end of the Calabrian peninsula, where it culminates in Cocuzzo and Aspramonte.

At the north-western end of the first ridge, we have Monte Corno, nearly as high as Etna in Sicily, with several summits, between that and Acuto, of from 7,000 to 9,000 feet in height. In the transverse ridge, Acuto is the highest crest, probably; but Monte St. Angelo, in the little peninsula of Cape Campanello, terminates the western end, as a rampart to the Bay of Naples, at an elevation of 4,770 feet, the elevation gradually declining from Monte Acuto to the Adriatic.

Again, between Monte Acuto and Capo del Armi, at the toe of Calabria, we have Cocuzzo, 5,620 feet, and Aspramonte, variously stated at from 5,830 to 4,380 feet, The little peninsula of Gargano forms a small mountain system of its own, an elevated well-studded table land, of a lumpy, roundish form, with radiating stream channels, in which Monte Cairo is said to be the highest point, reaching 5,088 feet.

These ridges, in lines far from straight, and broken by many differences of elevation, are, indeed, the spine and