United States or Niger ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Here the grey limestone breaks through the vegetation more and more, for the line is approaching the lofty stony plateau of the Karst, and enormous heaps of débris accentuate the position of the numerous quarries. They are very extensive, going far into the rock, which is also pierced by many great hollows, like entrances to an unknown under-world.
It is chiefly in the Katunska, the cradle of the Montenegrin nation, that the most interesting geological formations are to be found, and in these formations lay its former strength. The most prominent features of the Karst region are imperfect valleys which have no outlet.
But however chimerical these latter schemes may seem, there is every reason to believe that art might avail itself of these galleries for improving the imperfect drainage of the champaign country bounded by the Karst, and that stopping or opening the natural channels might very much modify the hydrography of an extensive region.
Towards Abbazia the red soil becomes more abundant, the hills are terraced, and vegetation is more luxuriant, great chestnuts and bay-trees appear, and cypresses when Lovrana is reached. This north shore of the Quarnero, stretching to Fiume, is the Riviera of Austria. The Dinaric Alps surround it from Monte Maggiore, and the Liburnian Karst to the Velebits.
With the exception of the Bukovica of Dalmatia and the lava-beds of southern Utah, the Istrian Karst is the most utterly hopeless region, from the standpoint of agriculture, that I know. It is dotted with many small farmsteads, it is true, but one marvels at the courage and patience which their peasant owners displayed in their unequal struggle with Nature.
The Austrian provinces which lie along the coast are, commencing at the north, the Küstenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia. In the first the Julian Alps form a great boundary wall to the plain of the Isonzo, from which the ground rises between Monfalcone and Nabresina to the stony district of the Karst.
We must remember that Karst regions are rare, and striking as is the work of their subterranean streams, it is far less important than the work done by the sheets of underground water slowly seeping through all subsoils and porous rocks in other regions.
In 129 B.C. the Istrians rose in revolt when Rome was occupied with the Gepid war. Many Istrians fled into the Karst region, and for a long time the land was unsafe. Julius Cæsar had to take measures to protect Tergeste from raids. The Italianising of the country proceeded apace.
I had already wondered when I saw the "Karst," near Trieste, and the desert region of Gorz; but these sink into insignificance when compared to the scenery of the Judean mountains. It is difficult to conceive how these regions can ever have been smiling and fertile.
The first is the stony portion, the grey limestone of the Karst; next the yellow sandstone formation which begins at Trieste and extends through middle Istria; and then the southern portion where the white limestone is underneath, and clay of a red ochreous colour occurs in streaks.
Word Of The Day