Word Finder - alps

definition

A very high mountain. Specifically, one of the Alps, the highest chain of mountains in Europe.

This place had nothing to the castle in the Alps, though she never wanted to go back.

Thunder cracked overhead.  Rhyn had ignored the rain, accustomed to being miserable.  Hell was either broiling or freezing, and the Alps were just as cold.  The underworld's chilled rain didn't compare.

Parma, one of the finest cities of northern Italy, lies in a fertile tract of the Lombard plain, within view of the Alps and sheltered by the Apennines, 170 ft.

The value per acre of land, which exceeds 48 in the departments of Seine, Rhne and those fringing the north-west coast from Nord to Manche inclusive, is on the average about 29, though it drops to 16 and less in Morbihan, Landes, Basses-Pyrnes, and parts of the Alps and the central plateau.

It consists in the main of an Archean block or " coign,"which still occupies nearly the whole of the western half of the continent, outcrops in north-eastern Queensland, forms the foundation of southern New South Wales and eastern Victoria, and is exposed in western Victoria, in Tasmania, and in the western flank of the Southern Alps of New Zealand.

Messrs Hamilton Hume and Hovell set out from Lake George, crossed the Murrumbidgee, and, after following the river for a short distance, struck south, skirting the foothills of what are now known as the Australian Alps until they reached a fine river, which was called the Hume after the leader's father.

In 387 Magnus Maximus, who had commanded a Roman army in Britain, and had in 383 (the year of Gratian's death) made himself master of the northern provinces, crossed the Alps into the valley of the Po and threatened Milan.

Ancient geographers appear to have generally regarded the remarkable headland which descends from the Maritime Alps to the sea between Nice and Monaco as the limit of Italy in that direction, and in a purely geographical point of view it is probably the best point that could be selected.

Towards the north-east, the point where the Julian Alps approach close to the seashore (just at the sources of the little stream known in ancient times as the Timavus) would seem to constitute the best natural limit.

Here the main chain of the Alps (as marked by watershed) recedes so far to the north that it has never constituted the frontier.

One chief result of the manner in which the Apennines traverse Italy from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic is the marked division between Northern Italy, including the region north of the Apennines and extending thence to the foot of the Alps, and the central and more southerly portions of the peninsula.

By far the larger portion of Northern Italy is occupied by the basin of the Po, which comprises the whole of the broad plain extending from the foot of the Apennines to that of the Alps, together with the valleys and slopes on both sides of it.

More important are the rivers that descend from the main chain of the Graian and Pennine Alps and join the Po on its left bank.

The next great affluent of the Po, the Adda, forms the outflow of the Lake of Como, and has also its sources in the Alps, above Bormio, whence it flows through the broad and fertile valley of the Valtellina for more than 65 m.

The tract adjoining this long line of lagoons is, like the basin of the Po, a broad expanse of perfectly level alluvial plain, extending from the Adige eastwards to the Carnic Alps, where they approach close to the Adriatic between Aquileia and Trieste, and northwards to the foot of the great chain, which here sweeps round in a semicircle from the neighborhood of Vicenza to that of Aquileia.

In the Alps and Vosges this resinous semi-fluid is collected by climbing the trees and pressing out the contents of the natural receptacles of the bark into horn or tin vessels held beneath them.

Metternich persuaded the tsar and the king of Prussia to make a declaration that the allies would leave to Napoleon the "natural boundaries" of France - the Rhine, Alps, Pyrenees and Ocean.

Schists, as a rule, are found in regions composed mainly of metamorphic rocks, such as the Central Alps, Himalayas, and other mountain ranges, Saxony, Scandinavia, the Highlands of Scotland and north-west of Ireland.

The Silurian mica-schists of Bergen in Norway are fossiliferous; in the Alps it is believed that even Mesozoic rocks pass laterally into mica-schists and talc-schists.

The whole of this plain has been formed by the debris swept down from the Alps by the rivers Po, Ticino, Oglio, Adda, Mincio, Adige, Brenta, Piave, Livenza, Tagliamento and Isonzo.

Along the coast-line, roughly speaking between the Apennines at Rimini and the Carnic Alps at Trieste, three main systems of lagoons were thus created, the lagoon of Grado or Marano to the east, the lagoon of Venice in the middle, and the lagoon of Comacchio to the south-west (for plan, see Harbour).

This expansion of mainland territory was followed in 1420 by the acquisition of Friuli after a successful war with the emperor Sigismund, thus bringing the possessions of the republic up to the Carnic and Julian Alps, their natural frontier on the north-east.

This, with the exception of a brief tenure of Cremona (1499-1512), formed her permanent territory down to the fall of the republic. Her frontiers now ran from the seacoast near Monfalcone, following the line of the Carnic and Julian and Raetian Alps to the Adda, down the course of that river till it joins the Po, and thence along the line of the Po back to the sea.

To the north of the valley of the Drave the duchy is occupied by the Hohe Tauern and the primitive Alps of Carinthia and Styria, which belong to the central zone of the Eastern Alps.

To the east of the Hohe Tauern stretches the group of the primitive Alps of Carinthia and Styria, namely the Pöllauer Alps with the glacier-covered peak of the Hafner Eck (10,041 ft.); the Stang Alps with the highest peak the Eisenhut (8007 ft.); the Saualpe with the highest peak the Grosse Saualpe (6825 ft.); and finally the Koralpen chain or the Stainzer Alps (7023 ft.) separated from the preceding group by the Lavant valley.

The country south of the Drave is occupied by several groups of the southern limestone zone, namely the Carnic Alps, the Julian Alps, the Karawankes and the Steiner Alps.

The Carnic Alps are divided by the Gail valley into the South Carnic group and the northern Gailtal Alps.

This fort covers the road which traverses the Predil Pass in the Julian Alps and is the principal road leading from Carinthia to the Coastland.

The Gailtal Alps end with the Dobratsch or Villacher Alp (7107 ft.), situated to the south-west of Villach, which is celebrated as one of the finest views in the whole eastern Alps.

The Ursula Berg (5563 ft.) ends the group of the Karawankas, which are continued by the Steiner Alps.

In 1828 he at last crossed the Alps, and the next three years were spent in Italy.

It soon becomes the boundary for a while between the departments of the HautesAlpes and of the Basses-Alpes, and receives successively the considerable Ubaye river, flowing from near the foot of Monte Viso past Barcelonnette (left), and then the small stream of the Luye (right), on which, a few miles above, is Gap. It enters the Basses-Alpes shortly before reaching Sisteron, where it is joined (right) by the wild torrent of the Busch, flowing from the desolate region of the Devoluy, and receives the Bleone (left) (on which Digne, the capital of the department, is situated) and the Asse (left), before quitting the department of the Basses-Alpes just as it is reinforced (left) by the Verdon, flowing from the lower summits of the Maritime Alps past Castellane.

After his father's death he crossed the Alps to found a school in France; but in a short while he decided that Normandy would afford him a better field.

Preparations for defence were made; a Neapolitan army was to advance through the Romagna and attack Milan, while the fleet was to seize Genoa; but both expeditions were badly conducted and failed, and on the 8th of September Charles crossed the Alps and joined Lodovico it Moro at Milan.

The St Bernard is a large breed taking its name from the monastery of Mount St Bernard in the Alps, and remarkable for high intelligence and use in rescuing travellers from the snow.

Farther west, the Vrbas cuts a channel through the Dinaric Alps, and, after passing Jajce and Banjaluka, meets the Save 94 m.

Rising on the Montenegrin border, under the Lebrsnik mountains, it flows north-westwards at the foot of the Dinaric Alps; and, near Konjica, sweeps round suddenly to the south, and falls into the Adriatic near Metkovic, after traversing 125 m.

In both alike the scirocco, bringing rain from the south-west, is a prevalent wind, as well as the bora, the fearful north-north-easter of Illyria, which, sweeping down the lateral valleys of the Dinaric Alps, overwhelms everything in its path.

To meet these forces the emperor could not collect men in all, of whom upwards of 10o,000 were held by Wellington on the Spanish frontier, and more were required to watch the debouches from the Alps.

At first it becomes more coarse-grained, like the Firn Schnee of the Alps, and is moist by melting during the summer.

There seem to be periodical oscillations in the extension of the glaciers and the inland ice similar to those that have been observed on the glaciers of the Alps and elsewhere.

The southern part belongs to the region of the Eastern Alps, containing the Salzkammergut and Upper Austrian Alps, which are found principally in the district of Salzkammergut (q.v.).

They are named the Usinsk Mountains in West Sayan and the Tunka Alps in East Sayan; the latter, pierced by the Angara at Irkutsk, are in all probability continued north-east in the Baikal Mountains, which stretch from Irkutsk to Olkhon Island and the Svyatoi Nos peninsula of Lake Baikal, thus dividing the lake into two parts.?

Beds of excellent graphite have been found in the Kitoi Alps (Mount Alibert) and in the Turukhansk district in.

The southern division of the province is, in the main, mountainous and hilly, and is occupied by the Lower Austrian Alps and their offshoots.

At Rome, in the Jubilee year 1500, he himself lectured with applause; but having been nominated in 1497 canon of the cathedral of Frauenburg, he recrossed the Alps in 1501 with the purpose of obtaining further leave of absence for the completion of his academic career.

It still survived in certain cantons of the Alps in the 5th century, and clung to life with more tenacity in its Eastern home.

When the spring had come, being still very poor and in feeble health, he started homewards on foot by Florence, across the Apennines, through Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Turin, over the Alps, through Savoy and Dauphine to Lyons, andfinally to Paris, where he arrived in excellent health.

These mountains belong to the Carpathians and the Alps, which are separated by the valley of the Danube.

The greatest elevations are in the Tatra mountains of the north of Hungary proper, in the east and south of Transylvania (the Transylvanian Alps) and in the eastern portion of the Banat.