Litchfield enquirer., 1854-02-16

the same river. The water having thrown itself into one of it's channels undermined tn few hours lofty cliff. and precipi- tated with it the church of St. Lucia
 which crowned its summit, into the flood
 below, carrying fragments of both far down the river. The power of running water is illustrated by the effects of a recent flood in Scotland. Con the Nai- ru. fragment of sandstone fourteen feet long. three feet wIde, and one foot thick !,
 was carried above 200 yards down the river" A granite bridge over the Dee which had withstood the freshets oi more than twenty years was torn from its foundation, and some of its fragments were carried miles down the eriver. Ever small streams when swollen will trans, port enormous quantities of sand ard earth. They have been known 10 carry sway 5000 tons of gravel in day. and 10 force stnnesA weighing from one 10 three tons miles down their channels.
 The power Of cunning water to exca> yate rocks is farther illustrated by the effects of the heavy rains which follcw> ed,a recent eruption of Vesuvius. The water flowing from the Atrio del Cavallo, in three days cut channel through the lava to the depth of twenty i've feet.
 The river Simeto which skirts the base of Mt. E,ns, has worn channel in the lava which obstructed it, from 200 to 800 feet in width. and from 4O 10 50 feet in depth. The materials. of course. in all tie above cascs, were cared by wate, ito greater or less distances. and often, thousands of miles in the ocean. It is probable. that extensive valleys. perhaps many miles in widtE, have been cut away by the action of floods at some early pc. riod. or by the breaking away of lakes or inland seas. It is supposed thas many of the valleys that are surrounded by high mountains, and which have pelhaps bu. one outlet into the adjacent level country vere once the bottoms of lakes. and that the waters at last breaking away the weakest parts of these mountain bar'iers or gradually wearing down and deepen> ing the channels of their outlste, have removed many square miles of rock. and deposited it in some lower valley. or per- haps in del,as. or in the ocean.
 IL would be impossible to state in this essay the probable localities of such trans. formations. We.may infer, however. that such changes have been frequent. fom our knowledge of the power of lunninC water and from the resemblance of the strata of different mountains which are now miles apart. and which form the banks of rivers or streams But rivers and brooks a,e constantly taking up ma terials from everything with which they come in contact, aud aie always deposit. ing them at their mouths in the form of deltas. Hence, although we observe no great change in the country through which the water flows. yet when all the materials conveyed are brought together we may form some estimate of their ex- tent. We have already spoken of the delta of the Mississippi: let us notice the principal del,as in the Eastern continent.
 The Rhone when it enters Lake Gen. eva is turbid and discolored, but when it's waters have passed to the outlet they become transparent. having deposited the matter they brought down upon the delta, tract of muddy, narshy land some six miles in length.
 Port Vallais. an ancient town, once up. on the lake sho,e, is now nearly two miles inland. Scarcely has the river flowed from the lake before i, is joined by the Arve, filled with ibe sand of the clumb- ling Alps, and the boulders of the annu- al glaciers. These materials. of which the larger proportion is pulyerized rock. are generally carried far into the sea, and have greatly increased the extent of the land at the mouth of the liver since the magnitude If its delta was first observed
 "From the norihernmost point of the Gulf of Trieste where the Tsonto enters down 10 the south of Ravenna, ihere is an uninterrupted series of accessions of land more than 100 miles in length, and from two 10 twenty miles in brea itI. which has been carried to the country above by the numerous streams which empty into the Adriatic. Adria, now about twenty miles from the coast was in the time of AlgmstuS n seaport.
 The della of the Nile. Ike ihusc of the rivers mentioned. has rapidly increased. inland. while inlands have become part of the coast The Ganges brings down such quantity of earth from the coun- try above that the sea only reoovers iis transparency st the distance of 60 miles from the shoe This river having relin. pushed its old channels. dug new ones. and demolished islands, is supposed 10 have carried away from one place forty square miles Of earth duringa few years. Islands of many acres in extent have heen formed in turns of the river by drified sand. hut the obstruction thus formed is only temporary. as the current digs out and carries away an equal amount of earth from fhe adiacent hanks.