The Apennines forming the boundary between the Marches and Latium, or Rome, like those of Etruria, are grouped in separate mountain masses. The first of these commands the valley of the Tiber in the east; it extends in the north to Monte Comero (3,828 feet) and the Fumajolo, or head-stream of the Tiber, and in the south to Monte Verone (5,006 feet). Though inferior in height to other parts of the Apennines, these mountains are known as the _Alpe della Luna_. A gap, {258} through which passes the road from Perugia to Fano, separates them from Monte Catria (5,585 feet). At that point the Apennines bifurcate, and two parallel ranges can be traced thence for a distance of 120 miles, as far as the transverse range of the Majella (9,158 feet), which reunites them, and from which radiate the mountains of Southern Italy. These parallel chains belong to the Jurassic and cretaceous formations, and neither of them forms a water-parting, for whilst the Nera and other rivers tributary to the Tiber force themselves a passage through the western one, that on the east is broken by numerous gorges, through which rivers and torrents find their way into the Adriatic. The most considerable of these rivers is the Pescara, which rises on the plateau of the Abruzzos, where it is known as the Aterno, and traverses the eastern range where it is highest. The gorge excavated by this river is sufficiently wide to afford space for a railway joining the Adriatic to the basin of the Tiber. The plateau of the Abruzzos, enclosed by these parallel ranges, may be looked upon as the natural citadel of Central Italy. On its western side rise the double pyramids of Monte Velino (8,157 feet); in the north Monte Vettore (8,131 feet) forms the termination of the range of the Sibillini; in the east rises the culminating point of the Apennines, a mountain covered with snow the greater part of the year, and appropriately called the “Great Rock of Italy”—“Gran Sasso d’Italia” (9,518 feet). The fact that this magnificent mountain is the highest in all Italy has been known from times immemorial. The Romans conceived they had discovered the “umbilic of Italy” in a small lake near it, upon which floated an island formed of rank vegetation. The Marsi and their allies, when they took up arms against their Roman oppressors, chose Corfinium, in its neighbourhood, for the seat of their empire, and surnamed it Italica; and there, too, the first movements which led to the resurrection of modern Italy took place. The Gran Sasso, as seen from the Adriatic, affords a magnificent spectacle. Its calcareous masses cannot boast of much beauty of profile, but this is compensated for by the fine Alpine region extending beneath its summit, which remains the haunt of bears and chamois, and where rare plants in the meadows remind us of Switzerland. Forests of beeches and pines are still met with in a few places, and are all the more appreciated as forests no longer exist in the lowland regions. This