The Earth and its inhabitants, Volume 1: Europe.: Greece, Turkey in Europe, Rumania, Servia, Montenegro, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.Reclus, Elisée
History
The Earth and its inhabitants, Volume 1: Europe.: Greece, Turkey in Europe, Rumania, Servia, Montenegro, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
Reclus, Elisée
Europe -- Description and travel; Geography
Lake Bolsena discharges its surplus waters through the Marta into
the Mediterranean. The fine Lake of Bracciano, to the south of it,
gives rise to the Arrone. It, too, appears to be a basin formed by a
subsidence of the ground or erosion, and not a crater. The Lake of
Vico, on the other hand, clearly occupies an ancient volcano, though
its rampart has been gutted towards the east. Close to the lake, and
within the encircling rampart, rises Monte Venere, a perfect cone,
the gentle slopes of which are luxuriantly wooded. Formerly the lake
surrounded this cone, but the breach through which its emissary escapes
to the Tiber having gradually been deepened, the waters of the lake
subsided. Tradition says that an ancient city lies at its bottom.
On crossing the Tiber we reach the beautiful volcanic group of Albano,
within the great crater of which may still be traced the remains
of several secondary craters, some of them occupied by lakes. The
principal one of these, Monte Cavo (2,790 feet), rises in the very
centre of the exterior rampart. Tradition points it out as one of
Hannibal’s camps. The exterior slopes of the mountain consist of
pozzuolana, small stones, and ashes, through which the torrents have
dug out furrows in divergent directions. The diversity of these {261}
volcanic products enables us to trace the phases of activity of this
Roman Vesuvius, which was active at a much more recent epoch than the
volcanoes farther north, and sent its streams of lava to the very gates
of Rome.
[Illustration: Fig. 91.—VOLCANOES OF LATIUM.
From the Austrian Staff Map. Scale 1 : 294,000.]
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