Orbitello is clearly proved to have been an Etruscan town; perhaps, according to Mr. Dennis, founded by the Pelasgi, "for the foundations of the sea-wall which surrounds it on three sides are of vast polygonal blocks, just such as are seen in many ancient sites of central Italy (Norba, Segni, Palæstrina, to wit), and such as compose the walls of the neighboring Cosa." Tombs of Etruscan construction have also been found in the immediate neighborhood of the city, on the isthmus of sand which connects it with the mainland. Others also have been found within the circuit of the walls. The tombs have been unusually productive; in part, no doubt, because they appear to have escaped earlier plunderers. Vases, numerous articles in bronze, and gold ornaments of great beauty have been found. Of the town itself, which from the distance has a very picturesque aspect, Mr. Dennis says: "It is a place of some size, having nearly six thousand inhabitants, and among Maremma towns is second only to Grosseto. It is a proof how much population tends to salubrity in the Maremma that Orbitello, though in the midst of a stagnant lagoon ten square miles in extent, is comparatively healthy, and has more than doubled its population in thirty years, while Telamona and other small places along the coast are almost deserted in summer, and the few people that remain become bloated like wine-skins or yellow as lizards." But the inland district is full of ruins and remnants of towns which in many cases were strongholds long before Romulus traced out the lines of the walls of Rome with his plough, if indeed that ever happened. Ansedonia, the ancient Cosa, is a very few miles away, Rusellæ, Saturnia, Sovana at a considerably greater distance; farther to the south rises another of these forest-clad ridges which, whether insulated by sea or by fen, are so characteristic of this portion of the Italian coast. Here the old walls of Corno, another Etruscan town, may be seen to rise above the olive-trees and the holm-oaks.