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.