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IV.—The Carrara, Massa, and Versilia Marble District
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
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The range of the Apuan Alps, commonly called the Carrara Mountains, is an offshoot of the Apennines, trending N.N.W. to S.S.E., parallel to the Mediterranean littoral, from which it rises within a distance of barely four miles to a maximum height of 6,000 feet above sea-level. Exclusive of the outer belt of the more recent strata, the Triassic formation, within which the saccharoidal marble beds are situated, covers about 25 by 13 kilometres or about 130 square miles, of which the marble zone proper represents 64 square miles or about half. The range is bounded on the north by the Aullela valley in the Lunigiana district; on the east by the Serchio valley in the Garfagnana district; and on the south by the Serchio valley in the Province of Lucca. The marble district, whose western part faces the Mediterranean, comprises the three divisions of Carrara, Massa, and the Versilia in the corresponding parallel valleys of the Carrione, Frigido, and Serravezza Rivers. The Versilia division, which forms part of the Province of Lucca, is composed of the Seravezza, Stazzema, and Arni subdivisions, of which the last-named lies on the eastern watershed of the Apuan range. The Versilia division also includes Pietrasanta, Camajore, Massarosa, and the wellknown watering-place of Viareggio, near the last-named of which are situated extensive subaqueous deposits of a peculiarly coarse-grained, sharp macigno sand. These deposits, formed as a delta in a lacustrine expanse by the River Serchio, constitute an important and indispensable adjunct of the marble industry as grinding material for the numerous marble saw-mills in the three parallel valleys already referred to.
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References
page 554 note 1 Building of the British Isles, p. 35Google Scholar.
page 554 note 2 See Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, vol. ix, p. 247.
page 554 note 3 It is only right to add that, after arriving at the conclusions stated in this paper, I found them to be substantially identical with those already reached by Dr. F. W. Bennett and Dr. B. Stracey, of Leicester. To the one I am indebted for helpful letters and copies of notes communicated to the Geologists' Association, and to the other for kindly lending me some two dozen rock slices from this north-western district, which, having been recently made in Germany, were especially useful as being rather thinner than my own, of English handiwork and for the most part at least a quarter of a century old. It is fortunate that, as now the quarries are being so rapidly enlarged, they and the Forest generally are being watched by such well-qualified observers as these and other Leicester geologists.
page 555 note 1 Lunigiana was the ancient Roman Luna district, the Carrara marble being then called Marmor Lunensis. The Apuan Alps were inhabited by a warlike tribe, the Apuani, subdued by the Romans 180 B.C.
page 555 note 2 In a prize paper, Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng., vol. ciii, 1891, “The Carrara Marble District Railway,” the author gave a summary description of the districtGoogle Scholar.
page 555 note 3 The Memoirs and Notes on the district by Lotti and Zaccagna in the Bollettino del R. Comitato Geologico d'Italia are the following:—
B. Lotti, : vol. 1881, pp. 1, 85, 419Google Scholar; and Carta Geol. d'Italia, 1910, p. 372.Google Scholar
D. Zaccagna, : vol. 1880; vol. 1881, pp. 1, 476; vol. 1896, p. 214Google Scholar.
B. Lotti is now Chief Engineer of the Royal Mining and Geological Department, Rome. Cav. D. Zaccagna is Resident Engineer of the same Department and Director of the Mining Institute of Carrara; he is himself a Carrarese who has, in the words of Dante, “tra bianchi marmi la sua dimora.”
page 556 note 1 This very conspicuous mountain, one of the highest of the series, is really a pizzo, its summit being a ridge not more than 10 yards long and barely 2 feet wide. Monte Forato is, as its name implies, remarkable for the great natural arched opening just below its summit.
page 561 note 1 The Lower Trias is, in the Apuan Alps, so sparsely represented by a coarse sedimentary conglomerate underlying the Middle Trias grezzoni at a few isolated points of the range, e.g. near Vinca, Pizzo d'Ucello, and in the Arni region, as to be negligible. The conglomerate marks a transition from Upper Permian to Trias.
page 561 note 2 “Nuovi Fossili delle Alpi Apuane”: Proc. Verb. Soc. Tosc. Scienze Naturali, November 14, 1880Google Scholar.
page 562 note 1 “Alpi Graje”: Boll. R. Com. Geol., 1892, p. 322Google Scholar. “Alpi Occidentali (Marittime)”: ibid., 1887, p. 416.
page 562 note 2 “Piante fossili Valle Tanaro, Alpi Marittime”: ibid., 1887, p. 417. The fossils of the Middle Trias grezzoni were determined by Stefani, De, P.V.S.T. Sc. Nat., vol. 1880Google Scholar; those of the Upper Trias series by Meneghini, “Fossili Triassici Alpi Apuane”: ibid., vol. v, p. 693; and by Canavari, ibid., vol. v, p. 184. Thus, the palæontological evidence of the Apuan Alps is practically complete. The best palæontological and petrological collection of the range, apart from the local one of Carrara, is that of the University of Pisa.
page 562 note 3 The present writer proposes to deal more fully in a future paper with this Lower Permian formation as distinguished from the Upper Permian verrucano formation. The Permian range of the Maritime Alps forms the divide between Southern Piémont and the Italian Riviera, known as the Montgioje Mountains, where the Tanaro, an affluent of the Po, has its source.
page 563 note 1 The total annual output of the practically inexhaustible quarries (over 600) of the whole district now reaches 400,000 tons of marble in blocks and for slabs, tiles, ornamental and sculptural purposes, of which Carrara represents about 66, Massa 14, and the Versilia 20 per cent. The 150 saw-mills in the three valleys consume about 130,000 tons of Viareggio sand per annum, almost as much as the total output of sawn marble. The wastage of marble in quarrying and in the other operations amounts to about 10 per cent of the total.The term “Sicilian Marble” mentioned in a recent paper (Geol. Mag., 1915, p. 290Google Scholar) is not used in the district, much less is it a geological term. It is an obvious and purely commercial misnomer, dating from the time of Napoleon I's embargo on exports to England, when Carrara marble was shipped from Leghorn first to Sicily and thence to England under the above alias.The marble beds of Carrara worked by the Romans are those of Ravaccione, Canal Grande, and Fantiscritti, chiefly for colossal statues, columns, and other monoliths. The Altissimo quarries and a road of access were opened in 1518 by Michelangelo, whose modest little cottage is still to be seen at Seravezza with the incisive inscription put by himself : “In questa casa abitò Michelangelo Buonarotti per domar le asprezze di questo paese.”