So  far  as  the  writer's  experience  has  gone,  until,  at  any  rate,
very  lately,  there  were  few  parts  of  the  world  about  which
untravelled  folk  entertained  vaguer  notions  than  the  Alps;
in  fact  he  has  often  suspected  some  of  his  questioners  of
believing  that  Switzerland  was  a  generally  'lumpy'  country,
with  one  great  peak,  Mont  Blanc,  in  the  middle  of  it.  The
efforts  of  the  Alpine  Club  and  the  increased  facilities  of  travel-
ling have  no  doubt  partly  dispelled  this  error ;  but  a  good  many
maps,  still  in  common  use,  depict  the  Alps  as  a  single  ridge
encircling  Italy;  or,  when  compelled  by  the  largeness  of  their
scale  into  a  little  more  detail,  indulge  in  some  suggestive
scratchings  between  the  rivers,  and  pepper  the  surface  with  a
few  names,  often  wrong,  in  which  important  and  unimportant
are  mingled  together  in  most  admired  confusion.  A  brief
account  of  the  general  configuration  of  the  Alpine  region  may
therefore  not  be  useless,  in  the  course  of  which  the  mostj
probable  explanations  of  it  will  be  sHghtly  noticed.
A  very  slight  examination  of  a  good  map,  especially  one
in  which  the  rivers  are  picked  out  in  a  different  colour,  will
shew  that  over  the  greater  part  of  the  Alps  the  valleys  may
be  divided  into  two  classes;  the  one  containing  those  which
have  a  general  direction  from  E.N.E.  to  W.S.W.;  the  other,
those  whose  course  is  at  right  angles  to  this  line;  and  the
former  will  be  found  to  be,  as  a  rule,  much  more  extensive
than  the  latter.  This  configuration  prevails  almost  universally
throughout  the  Western  and  Central  Alps';    in  the  Eastern

1  The  above  division  though  without  geographical  significance  is  convenient
for  purposes  of  reference.    The  Western  Alps  include  the  mountains  of  France,

1—2


4  THE  ALPINE  REGIONS.
