Maritime-alps meaning

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.

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.

Chief Peaks of the Maritime Alps.

9,994 Rocca dell' Abisso 9,039 Chief Passes of the Maritime Alps.

The other strange feature is that from near Isola in the upper Tinee valley southwards the political frontier does not coincide with the physical frontier, or the main watershed of the Alpine chain; the reason (it is said) is that in 1860 all the higher valleys of the Maritime Alps (on both sides of the watershed) were expressly excepted from the treaty of cession, in order that Victor Emmanuel II.