Principles of Geology Part 19

By a.n.a.lysis of the water, Mr. Faraday has ascertained that the solution of the silex is promoted by the presence of the alkali, soda. He suggests that the deposition of silica in an insoluble state takes place partly because the water when cooled by exposure to the air is unable to retain as much silica as when it issues from the earth at a temperature of 180 or 190 Fahr.; and partly because the evaporation of the water decomposes the compound of silica and soda which previously existed. This last change is probably hastened by the carbonic acid of the atmosphere uniting with the soda. The alkali, when disunited from the silica, would readily be dissolved in and removed by running water.[325]

Mineral waters, even when charged with a small proportion of silica, as those of Ischia, may supply certain species of corals, sponges, and infusoria, with matter for their siliceous secretions; but there is little doubt that rivers obtain silex in solution from another and far more general source, namely, the decomposition of felspar. When this mineral, which is so abundant an ingredient in the hypogene and trappean rocks, has disintegrated, it is found that the residue, called porcelain clay, contains a small proportion only of the silica which existed in the original felspar, the other part having been dissolved and removed by water.[326]

_Ferruginous springs._--The waters of almost all springs contain some iron in solution; and it is a fact familiar to all, that many of them are so copiously impregnated with this metal, as to stain the rocks or herbage through which they pa.s.s, and to bind together sand and gravel into solid ma.s.ses. We may naturally, then, conclude that this iron, which is constantly conveyed from the interior of the earth into lakes and seas, and which does not escape again from them into the atmosphere by evaporation, must act as a coloring and cementing principle in the subaqueous deposits now in progress. Geologists are aware that many ancient sandstones and conglomerates are bound together or colored by iron.

_Brine springs._--So great is the quant.i.ty of muriate of soda in some springs, that they yield one-fourth of their weight in salt. They are rarely, however, so saturated, and generally contain, intermixed with salt, carbonate and sulphate of lime, magnesia, and other mineral ingredients. The brine springs of Ches.h.i.+re are the richest in our country; those of Northwich being almost saturated. Those of Barton also, in Lancas.h.i.+re, and Droitwich in Worcesters.h.i.+re, are extremely rich.[327] They are known to have flowed for more than 1000 years, and the quant.i.ty of salt which they have carried into the Severn and Mersey must be enormous. These brine springs rise up through strata of sandstone and red marl, which contain large beds of rock salt. The origin of the brine, therefore, may be derived in this and many other instances from beds of fossil salt; but as muriate of soda is one of the products of volcanic emanations and of springs in volcanic regions, the original source of salt may be as deep seated as that of lava.

Many springs in Sicily contain muriate of soda, and the "fiume salso,"

in particular, is impregnated with so large a quant.i.ty, that cattle refuse to drink of it. A hot spring, rising through granite, at Saint Nectaire, in Auvergne, may be mentioned as one of many, containing a large proportion of muriate of soda, together with magnesia and other ingredients.[328]

_Carbonated springs.--Auvergne._--Carbonic acid gas is very plentifully disengaged from springs in almost all countries, but particularly near active or extinct volcanoes. This elastic fluid has the property of decomposing many of the hardest rocks with which it comes in contact, particularly that numerous cla.s.s in whose composition felspar is an ingredient. It renders the oxide of iron soluble in water, and contributes, as was before stated, to the solution of calcareous matter.

In volcanic districts these gaseous emanations are not confined to springs, but rise up in the state of pure gas from the soil in various places. The Grotto del Cane, near Naples, affords an example, and prodigious quant.i.ties are now annually disengaged from every part of the Limagne d'Auvergne, where it appears to have been developed in equal quant.i.ty from time immemorial. As the acid is invisible, it is not observed, except an excavation be made, wherein it immediately acc.u.mulates, so that it will extinguish a candle. There are some springs in this district, where the water is seen bubbling and boiling up with much noise, in consequence of the abundant disengagement of this gas. In the environs of Pont-Gibaud, not far from Clermont, a rock belonging to the gneiss formation, in which lead-mines are worked, has been found to be quite saturated with carbonic acid gas, which is constantly disengaged. The carbonates of iron, lime, and manganese are so dissolved, that the rock is rendered soft, and the quartz alone remains unattacked.[329] Not far off is the small volcanic cone of Chaluzet, which once broke up through the gneiss, and sent forth a lava stream.

_Supposed atmosphere of carbonic acid._--Prof. Bischoff in his history of volcanoes,[330] has shown what enormous quant.i.ties of carbonic acid gas are exhaled in the vicinity of the extinct craters of the Rhine (in the neighborhood of the Laacher-see, for example, and the Eifel), and also in the mineral springs of Na.s.sau and other countries, where there are no immediate traces of volcanic action. It would be easy to calculate in how short a period the solid carbon, thus emitted from the interior of the earth in an invisible form, would amount to a quant.i.ty as great as could be obtained from the trees of a large forest, and how many thousand years would be required to supply the materials of a dense seam of pure coal from the same source. Geologists who favor the doctrine of the former existence of an atmosphere highly charged with carbonic acid, at the period of the ancient coal-plants, have not sufficiently reflected on the continual disengagement of carbon, which is taking place in a gaseous form from springs, as also in a free state from the ground and from volcanic craters into the air. We know that all plants are now engaged in secreting carbon, and many thousands of large trees are annually floated down by great rivers, and buried in their alluvial deposits; but before we can a.s.sume that the quant.i.ty of carbon which becomes permanently locked up in the earth by such agency will bring about an essential change in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, we must be sure that the trees annually buried contain more carbon than is given out from the interior of the earth in the same lapse of time. Every large area covered by a dense ma.s.s of peat, bears ample testimony to the fact, that several million tons of carbon have been taken from the air, by the powers of vegetable life, and stored up in the earth's crust, a large quant.i.ty of oxygen having been at the same time set free; but we cannot infer from these circ.u.mstances, that the const.i.tution of the atmosphere has been materially deranged, until we have data for estimating the rate at which dead animal and vegetable substances are daily putrefying,--organic remains and various calcareous rocks decomposing, and volcanic regions emitting fresh volumes of carbonic acid gas. That the ancient carboniferous period was one of vast duration all geologists are agreed; instead, therefore, of supposing an excess of carbonic acid in the air at that epoch, for the support of a peculiar flora, we may imagine Time to have multiplied the quant.i.ty of carbon given out annually by mineral springs, volcanic craters, and other sources, until the component elements of any given number of coal-seams had been evolved from below, without any variation taking place in the const.i.tution of the atmosphere. It has been too common, in reasoning on this question, to compute the loss of carbon by the volume of coal stored up in the ancient strata, and to take no account of the annual gain, by the restoration of carbonic acid to the atmosphere, through the machinery above alluded to.[331]

_Disintegrating effects of carbonic acid._--The disintegration of granite is a striking feature of large districts in Auvergne, especially in the neighborhood of Clermont. This decay was called by Dolomieu, "la maladie du granite;" and the rock may with propriety be said to have _the rot_, for it crumbles to pieces in the hand. The phenomenon may, without doubt, be ascribed to the continual disengagement of carbonic acid gas from numerous fissures.

In the plains of the Po, between Verona and Parma, especially at Villa Franca, south of Mantua, I observed great beds of alluvium, consisting chiefly of primary pebbles, percolated by spring-water, charged with carbonate of lime and carbonic acid in great abundance. They are for the most part incrusted with calc-sinter; and the rounded blocks of gneiss, which have all the outward appearance of solidity, have been so disintegrated by the carbonic acid as readily to fall to pieces.

The subtraction of many of the elements of rocks by the solvent power of carbonic acid, ascending both in a gaseous state and mixed with spring-water in the crevices of rocks, must be one of the most powerful sources of those internal changes and rearrangements of particles so often observed in strata of every age. The calcareous matter, for example, of sh.e.l.ls, is often entirely removed and replaced by carbonate of iron, pyrites, silex, or some other ingredient, such as mineral waters usually contain in solution. It rarely happens, except in limestone rocks, that the carbonic acid can dissolve all the const.i.tuent parts of the ma.s.s; and for this reason, probably, calcareous rocks are almost the only ones in which great caverns and long winding pa.s.sages are found.

_Petroleum springs._--Springs of which the waters contain a mixture of petroleum and the various minerals allied to it, as bitumen, naphtha, asphaltum, and pitch, are very numerous, and are, in many cases, undoubtedly connected with subterranean fires, which raise or sublime the more subtle parts of the bituminous matters contained in rocks. Many springs in the territory of Modena and Parma, in Italy, produce petroleum in abundance; but the most powerful, perhaps, yet known, are those on the Irawadi, in the Burman empire. In one locality there are said to be 520 wells, which yield annually 400,000 hogsheads of petroleum.[332]

_Pitch lake of Trinidad._--Fluid bitumen is seen to ooze from the bottom of the sea, on both sides of the island of Trinidad, and to rise up to the surface of the water. Near Cape La Braye there is a vortex which, in stormy weather, according to Captain Mallet, gushes out, raising the water five or six feet, and covers the surface for a considerable s.p.a.ce with petroleum, or tar; and the same author quotes Gumilla, as stating, in his "Description of the Orinoco," that about seventy years ago, a spot of land on the western coast of Trinidad, near half-way between the capital and an Indian village, sank suddenly, and was immediately replaced by a small lake of pitch, to the great terror of the inhabitants.[333]

It is probable that the great pitch lake of Trinidad owes its origin to a similar cause; and Dr. Nugent has justly remarked, that in that district all the circ.u.mstances are now combined from which deposits of pitch may have originated. The Orinoco has for ages been rolling down great quant.i.ties of woody and vegetable bodies into the surrounding sea, where, by the influence of currents and eddies, they may be arrested and acc.u.mulated in particular places. The frequent occurrence of earthquakes and other indications of volcanic action in those parts lend countenance to the opinion, that these vegetable substances may have undergone, by the agency of subterranean fire, those transformations and chemical changes which produce petroleum; and this may, by the same causes, be forced up to the surface, where, by exposure to the air, it becomes insp.i.s.sated, and forms the different varieties of pure and earthy pitch, or asphaltum, so abundant in the island.[334]

It may be stated generally, that a large portion of the finer particles and the more crystalline substances, found in sedimentary rocks of different ages, are composed of the same elements as are now held in solution by springs, while the coa.r.s.er materials bear an equally strong resemblance to the pebbles and sedimentary matter carried down by torrents and rivers. It should also be remembered, that it is not only during inundations, when the muddy sediment is apparent, that rivers are busy in conveying solid matter to the sea, but that even when their waters are perfectly transparent, they are annually bearing along vast ma.s.ses of carbon, lime, and silica to the ocean.

CHAPTER XVII.

REPRODUCTIVE EFFECTS OF RIVERS.

Lake deltas--Growth of the delta of the Upper Rhine in the Lake of Geneva--Computation of the age of deltas--Recent deposits in Lake Superior--Deltas of inland seas--Course of the Po--Artificial embankments of the Po and Adige--Delta of the Po, and other rivers entering the Adriatic--Rapid conversion of that gulf into land--Mineral characters of the new deposits--Marine delta of the Rhone--Various proofs of its increase--Stony nature of its deposits--Coast of Asia Minor--Delta of the Nile.

DELTAS IN LAKES.

I have already spoken in the 14th chapter of the action of running water, and of the denuding power of rivers, but we can only form a just conception of the excavating and removing force exerted by such bodies of water, when we have the advantage of examining the reproductive effects of the same agents: in other words, of beholding in a palpable form the aggregate amount of matter, which they have thrown down at certain points in their alluvial plains, or in the basins of lakes and seas. Yet it will appear, when we consider the action of currents, that the growth of deltas affords a very inadequate standard by which to measure the entire carrying power of running water, since a considerable portion of fluviatile sediment is swept far out to sea.

Deltas may be divided into, first, those which are formed in lakes; secondly, those in island seas, where the tides are almost imperceptible; and, thirdly, those on the borders of the ocean. The most characteristic distinction between the lacustrine and marine deltas consists in the nature of the organic remains which become imbedded in their deposits; for, in the case of a lake, it is obvious that these must consist exclusively of such genera of animals as inhabit the land or the waters of a river or a lake; whereas, in the other case, there will be an admixture, and most frequently a predominance, of animals which inhabit salt water. In regard, however, to the distribution of inorganic matter, the deposits of lakes and seas are formed under very a.n.a.logous circ.u.mstances.

_Lake of Geneva._--Lakes exemplify the first reproductive operations in which rivers are engaged when they convey the detritus of rocks and the ingredients of mineral springs from mountainous regions. The accession of new land at the mouth of the Rhone, at the upper end of the Lake of Geneva, or the Leman Lake, presents us with an example of a considerable thickness of strata which have acc.u.mulated since the historical era.

This sheet of water is about thirty-seven miles long, and its breadth is from two to eight miles. The shape of the bottom is very irregular, the depth having been found by late measurements to vary from 20 to 160 fathoms.[335] The Rhone, where it enters at the upper end, is turbid and discolored; but its waters, where it issues at the town of Geneva, are beautifully clear and transparent. An ancient town, called Port Vallais (Portus Valesiae of the Romans), once situated at the water's edge, at the upper end, is now more than a mile and a half inland--this intervening alluvial tract having been acquired in about eight centuries. The remainder of the delta consists of a flat alluvial plain, about five or six miles in length, composed of sand and mud, a little raised above the level of the river, and full of marshes.

Sir Henry De la Beche found, after numerous soundings in all parts of the lake, that there was a pretty uniform depth of from 120 to 160 fathoms throughout the central region, and on approaching the delta, the shallowing of the bottom began to be very sensible at a distance of about a mile and three quarters from the mouth of the Rhone; for a line drawn from St. Gingoulph to Vevey gives a mean depth of somewhat less than 600 feet, and from that part of the Rhone, the fluviatile mud is always found along the bottom.[336] We may state, therefore, that the new strata annually produced are thrown down upon a slope about two miles in length; so that, notwithstanding the great depth of the lake, the new deposits are inclined at so slight an angle, that the dip of the beds would be termed, in ordinary geological language, horizontal.

The strata probably consist of alternations of finer and coa.r.s.er particles; for, during the hotter months from April to August, when the snows melt, the volume and velocity of the river are greatest, and large quant.i.ties of sand, mud, vegetable matter, and drift-wood are introduced; but during the rest of the year, the influx is comparatively feeble, so much so, that the whole lake, according to Saussure, stands six feet lower. If, then, we could obtain a section of the acc.u.mulation formed in the last eight centuries, we should see a great series of strata, probably from 600 to 900 feet thick (the supposed original depth of the head of the lake), and nearly two miles in length, inclined at a very slight angle. In the mean time, a great number of smaller deltas are growing around the borders of the lake, at the mouths of rapid torrents, which pour in large ma.s.ses of sand and pebbles. The body of water in these torrents is too small to enable them to spread out the transported matter over so extensive an area as the Rhone does. Thus, for example, there is a depth of eighty fathoms within half a mile of the sh.o.r.e, immediately opposite the great torrent which enters east of Ripaille, so that the dip of the strata in that minor delta must be about four times as great as those deposited by the main river at the upper extremity of the lake.[337]

_Chronological computations of the age of deltas._--The capacity of this basin being now ascertained, it would be an interesting subject of inquiry, to determine in what number of years the Leman Lake will be converted into dry land. It would not be very difficult to obtain the elements for such a calculation, so as to approximate at least to the quant.i.ty of time required for the accomplishment of the result. The number of cubic feet of water annually discharged by the river into the lake being estimated, experiments might be made in the winter and summer months, to determine the proportion of matter held in suspension or in chemical solution by the Rhone. It would be also necessary to allow for the heavier matter drifted along at the bottom, which might be estimated on hydrostatical principles, when the average size of the gravel and the volume and velocity of the stream at different seasons were known.

Supposing all these observations to have been made, it would be more easy to calculate the future than the former progress of the delta, because it would be a laborious task to ascertain, with any degree of precision, the original depth and extent of that part of the lake which is already filled up. Even if this information were actually obtained by borings, it would only enable us to approximate within a certain number of centuries to the time when the Rhone began to form its present delta; but this would not give us the date of the origin of the Leman Lake in its present form, because the river may have flowed into it for thousands of years, without importing any sediment whatever. Such would have been the case, if the waters had first pa.s.sed through a chain of upper lakes; and that this was actually the fact, seems indicated by the course of the Rhone between Martigny and the Lake of Geneva, and, still more decidedly, by the channels of many of its princ.i.p.al feeders.

If we ascend, for example, the valley through which the Dranse flows, we find that it consists of a succession of basins, one above the other, in each of which there is a wide expanse of flat alluvial lands, separated from the next basin by a rocky gorge, once perhaps the barrier of a lake. The river seems to have filled these lakes, one after the other, and to have partially cut through the barriers, some of which it is still gradually eroding to a greater depth. Before, therefore, we can pretend even to hazard a conjecture as to the era at which the princ.i.p.al delta of Lake Leman or any other delta commenced, we must be thoroughly acquainted with the geographical features and geological history of the whole system of higher valleys which communicate with the main stream, and all the changes which they have undergone since the last series of convulsions which agitated and altered the face of the country.

_Lake Superior._--Lake Superior is the largest body of freshwater in the world, being above 1700 geographical miles in circ.u.mference when we follow the sinuosities of its coasts, and its length, on a curved line drawn through its centre, being more than 400, and its extreme breadth above 150 geographical miles. Its surface is nearly as large as the whole of England. Its average depth varies from 80 to 150 fathoms; but, according to Captain Bayfield, there is reason to think that its greatest depth would not be overrated at 200 fathoms, so that its bottom is, in some parts, nearly 600 feet below the level of the Atlantic, its surface being about as much above it. There are appearances in different parts of this, as of the other Canadian lakes, leading us to infer that its waters formerly occupied a higher level than they reach at present; for at a considerable distance from the present sh.o.r.es, parallel lines of rolled stones and sh.e.l.ls are seen rising one above the other, like the seats of an amphitheatre. These ancient lines of s.h.i.+ngle are exactly similar to the present beaches in most bays, and they often attain an elevation of 40 or 50 feet above the present level. As the heaviest gales of wind do not raise the waters more than three or four feet, the elevated beaches have by some been referred to the subsidence of the lake at former periods, in consequence of the wearing down of its barrier; by others to the upraising of the sh.o.r.es by earthquakes, like those which have produced similar phenomena on the coast of Chili.

The streams which discharge their waters into Lake Superior are several hundred in number, without reckoning those of smaller size; and the quant.i.ty of water supplied by them is many times greater than that discharged at the Falls of St. Mary, the only outlet. The evaporation, therefore, is very great, and such as might be expected from so vast an extent of surface. On the northern side, which is encircled by primary mountains, the rivers sweep in many large boulders with smaller gravel and sand, chiefly composed of granitic and trap rocks. There are also currents in the lake in various directions, caused by the continued prevalence of strong winds, and to their influence we may attribute the diffusion of finer mud far and wide over great areas; for by numerous soundings made during Captain Bayfield's survey, it was ascertained that the bottom consists generally of a very adhesive clay, containing sh.e.l.ls of the species at present existing in the lake. When exposed to the air, this clay immediately becomes indurated in so great a degree, as to require a smart blow to break it. It effervesces slightly with diluted nitric acid, and is of different colors in different parts of the lake; in one district blue, in another red, and in a third white, hardening into a substance resembling pipeclay.[338] From these statements, the geologist will not fail to remark how closely these recent lacustrine formations in America resemble the tertiary argillaceous and calcareous marls of lacustrine origin in Central France. In both cases many of the genera of sh.e.l.ls most abundant, as Limnea and Planorbis, are the same; and in regard to other cla.s.ses of organic remains there must be the closest a.n.a.logy, as I shall endeavor more fully to explain when speaking of the imbedding of plants and animals in recent deposits.

DELTAS OF INLAND SEAS.

Having thus briefly considered some of the lacustrine deltas now in progress, we may next turn our attention to those of inland seas.

_Course of the Po._--The Po affords an instructive example of the manner in which a great river bears down to the sea the matter poured into it by a mult.i.tude of tributaries descending from lofty chains of mountains.

The changes gradually effected in the great plain of Northern Italy, since the time of the Roman republic, are considerable. Extensive lakes and marshes have been gradually filled up, as those near Placentia, Parma, and Cremona, and many have been drained naturally by the deepening of the beds of rivers. Deserted river-courses are not unfrequent, as that of the Serio Morto, which formerly fell into the Adda, in Lombardy. The Po also itself has often deviated from its course, having after the year 1390 deserted part of the territory of Cremona, and invaded that of Parma; its old channel being still recognizable, and bearing the name of Po Morto. There is also an old channel of the Po in the territory of Parma, called Po Vecchio, which was abandoned in the twelfth century, when a great number of towns were destroyed.

_Artificial embankments of Italian rivers._--To check these and similar aberrations, a general system of embankment has been adopted; and the Po, Adige, and almost all their tributaries, are now confined between high artificial banks. The increased velocity acquired by streams thus closed in, enables them to convey a much larger portion of foreign matter to the sea; and, consequently, the deltas of the Po and Adige have gained far more rapidly on the Adriatic since the practice of embankment became almost universal. But, although more sediment is borne to the sea, part of the sand and mud, which in the natural state of things would be spread out by annual inundations over the plain, now subsides in the bottom of the river-channels; and their capacity being thereby diminished, it is necessary, in order to prevent inundations in the following spring, to extract matter from the bed, and to add it to the banks of the river. Hence it happens that these streams now traverse the plain on the top of high mounds, like the waters of aqueducts, and at Ferrara the surface of the Po has become more elevated than the roofs of the houses.[339] The magnitude of these barriers is a subject of increasing expense and anxiety, it having been sometimes found necessary to give an additional height of nearly one foot to the banks of the Adige and Po in a single season.

The practice of embankment was adopted on some of the Italian rivers as early as the thirteenth century; and Dante, writing in the beginning of the fourteenth, describes, in the seventh circle of h.e.l.l, a rivulet of tears separated from a burning sandy desert by embankments "like those which, between Ghent and Bruges, were raised against the ocean, or those which the Paduans had erected along the Brenta to defend their villas on the melting of the Alpine snows."

Quale i Fiamminghi tra Guzzante e Bruggia, Temendo il fiotto che in ver lor s'avventa, Fanno lo schermo, perche il mar si fuggia, E quale i Padovan lungo la Brenta, Per difender lor ville e lor castelli, Anzi che Chiarentana il caldo senta.--

_Inferno_, Canto xv.

In the Adriatic, from the northern part of the Gulf of Trieste, where the Isonzo enters, down to the south of Ravenna, there is an uninterrupted series of recent accessions of land, more than 100 miles in length, which, within the last 2000 years, have increased from _two to twenty miles in breadth_. A line of sand-bars of great length has been formed nearly all along the western coast of this gulf, inside of which are lagunes, such as those of Venice, and the large lagune of Comacchio, 20 miles in diameter. Newly deposited mud brought down by the streams is continually lessening the depth of the lagunes, and converting part of them into meadows.[340] The Isonzo, Tagliamento, Piave, Brenta, Adige, and Po, besides many other inferior rivers, contribute to this advance of the coast-line and to the shallowing of the lagunes and the gulf.

_Delta of the Po._--The Po and the Adige may now be considered as entering by one common delta, for two branches of the Adige are connected with arms of the Po, and thus the princ.i.p.al delta has been pushed out beyond those bars which separate the lagunes from the sea.

The rate of the advance of this new land has been accelerated, as before stated, since the system of embanking the rivers became general, especially at that point where the Po and Adige enter. The waters are no longer permitted to spread themselves far and wide over the plains, and to leave behind them the larger portion of their sediment. Mountain torrents also have become more turbid since the clearing away of forests, which once clothed the southern flanks of the Alps. It is calculated that the mean rate of advance of the delta of the Po on the Adriatic between the years 1200 and 1600 was 25 yards or metres a year, whereas the mean annual gain from 1600 to 1804 was 70 metres.[341]

Adria was a seaport in the time of Augustus, and had, in ancient times, given its name to the gulf; it is now about twenty Italian miles inland.

Ravenna was also a seaport, and is now about four miles from the main sea. Yet even before the practice of embankment was introduced, the alluvium of the Po advanced with rapidity on the Adriatic; for Spina, a very ancient city, originally built in the district of Ravenna, at the mouth of a great arm of the Po, was, so early as the commencement of our era, eleven miles distant from the sea.[342]

But although so many rivers are rapidly converting the Adriatic into land, it appears, by the observations of M. Morlot, that since the time of the Romans, there has been a general subsidence of the coast and bed of this sea in the same region to the amount of five feet, so that the advance of the new-made land has not been so fast as it would have been had the level of the coast remained unaltered. The signs of a much greater depression anterior to the historical period have also been brought to light by an Artesian well, bored in 1847, to the depth of more than 400 feet, which still failed to penetrate through the modern fluviatile deposit. The auger pa.s.sed chiefly through beds of sand and clay, but at four several depths, one of them very near the bottom of the excavation, it pierced beds of turf, or acc.u.mulations of vegetable matter, precisely similar to those now formed superficially on the extreme borders of the Adriatic. Hence we learn that a considerable area of what was once land has sunk down 400 feet in the course of ages.[343]

The greatest depth of the Adriatic, between Dalmatia and the mouths of the Po, is twenty-two fathoms; but a large part of the Gulf of Trieste and the Adriatic, opposite Venice, is less than twelve fathoms deep.

Farther to the south, where it is less affected by the influx of great rivers, the gulf deepens considerably. Donati, after dredging the bottom, discovered the new deposits to consist partly of mud and partly of rock, the rock being formed of calcareous matter, incrusting sh.e.l.ls.

He also ascertained, that particular species of testacea were grouped together in certain places, and were becoming slowly incorporated with the mud or calcareous precipitates.[344] Olivi, also, found some deposits of sand, and others of mud, extending half way across the gulf; and he states that their distribution along the bottom was evidently determined by the prevailing current.[345] It is probable, therefore, that the finer sediment of all the rivers at the head of the Adriatic may be intermingled by the influence of the current; and all the central parts of the gulf may be considered as slowly filling up with horizontal deposits, similar to those of the Subapennine hills, and containing many of the same species of sh.e.l.ls. The Po merely introduces at present fine sand and mud, for it carries no pebbles farther than the spot where it joins the Trebia, west of Piacenza. Near the northern borders of the basin, the Isonzo, Tagliamento, and many other streams, are forming immense beds of sand and some conglomerate; for here some high mountains of Alpine limestone approach within a few miles of the sea.

In the time of the Romans, the hot-baths of Monfalcone were on one of several islands of Alpine limestone, between which and the mainland, on the north, was a channel of the sea, about a mile broad. This channel is now converted into a gra.s.sy plain, which surrounds the islands on all sides. Among the numerous changes on this coast, we find that the present channel of the Isonzo is several miles to the west of its ancient bed, in part of which, at Ronchi, the old Roman bridge which crossed the Via Appia was lately found buried in fluviatile silt.

_Marine delta of the Rhone._--The lacustrine delta of the Rhone in Switzerland has already been considered (p. 251), its contemporaneous marine delta may now be described. Scarcely has the river pa.s.sed out of the Lake of Geneva before its pure waters are again filled with sand and sediment by the impetuous Arve, descending from the highest Alps, and bearing along in its current the granitic detritus annually brought down by the glaciers of Mont Blanc. The Rhone afterwards receives vast contributions of transported matter from the Alps of Dauphiny, and the primary and volcanic mountains of Central France; and when at length it enters the Mediterranean, it discolors the blue waters of that sea with a whitish sediment, for the distance of between six and seven miles, throughout which s.p.a.ce the current of fresh water is perceptible.