Stories of persons and places in Europe . arted a third and smallerone running east and west for a time then starting off was the Apennines, which forms the back bone of Italy. Then cameearthquakes and steam explosions and cataracts of rain, splintering thetops of the walls, and rolling their fragments into the valleys. As yet the frost had not come. When he came he made the glaciers,which brought down hosts of bowlders, great and small, from the crags andpinnacles, and the chips, fragments, and dust from his winters work helpedto fill up the bed of the sea that was inclos
Stories of persons and places in Europe . arted a third and smallerone running east and west for a time then starting off was the Apennines, which forms the back bone of Italy. Then cameearthquakes and steam explosions and cataracts of rain, splintering thetops of the walls, and rolling their fragments into the valleys. As yet the frost had not come. When he came he made the glaciers,which brought down hosts of bowlders, great and small, from the crags andpinnacles, and the chips, fragments, and dust from his winters work helpedto fill up the bed of the sea that was inclosed within the walls until the lands Italy. 363 of Piedmont, and the plains of Lombardy were raised from out the water. The lakes of Como, Maggiore and La Garda were then mere fords openinginto the sea like those of Norway. All the Alpine valleys were full to thebrim of huge old glaciers. In those early times the Po flowed forth from the ice caverns of the giantglaciers, just as at the present day it does from their small descendants high. BAY OF NAPLES. up among the inner Alps. No forests then clothed the rocky heights, all waswhite and barren, a waste of snow most dreary to look upon, had eyes beenthere to look. But not useless were these great glaciers, they were per-forming their appointed work,—scouping out lake basins, great and small,and grinding to powder the rocks in their path which carried into the greatriver were spread out in the valley to form the soil on which man, when allwas ready, was to come and sow his crop. 364 Persons and Places in Europe. What a mighty river the Po must then have been, and what a crashingof ice and bowlders there was during his spring floods. Stones, sandand mud rolled along the bottom or were scattered out across the plainas he overran his banks, or changed his course from one channel toanother. But still the Po is a magnificent river. Its lakes and streams extendfrom the Maritime Alps to the gulf of Venice. It gathers in as it flows th
Size: 1938px × 1289px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidstoriesofper, bookyear1887
