The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1925-06-16
MOUNTAINS LOWER
THAN IN OLD DAYS
RAIN CONSTANTLY CUTTING
DOWN WORLDS HIGHEST
POINTS. MAKING LAND.

Britain is very old country. Parts
of it. such as Dartmoor, the Welsh
mountains the Malyerns, the Peak OF
Derbyshire and the Scottish High
lands have been above water Tor hun
dreds of centuries, says London An
swers.
In the early days, speaking from a
geological point of view much OF
western England was a range OF tow
ering volcanic peaks But frost and
rain between them are always at work
breaking up tall mountains and wash
ing the broken rock away to lower
levels.
All Devon and Cornwall, for in
stance, have been built up out OF the
broken remains OF the original ridge
of sDouting volcanoes as tall as the
Himalayas or the Andes
Saved From the Sea.
Today the same process is still go
ing on, though more slowly than tor
merly, for in modern times cold is
not so intense or rainfall so heavy.
But the process never ceases. Each
wear the mountains are a little lower,
but Britain on the whole becomes a
little larger.
Does this surprise you2 From the
alarmist accounts you read in the
newspapers of cliffs tumbling into the
sea, of waves biting off great sections
of beach, and of the collapse OF piers
and houses you might easily suppose
that this island was being rapidly
washed away.
The facts, however, are very differ
ent, ior it is known that while in the
past fifty years some ten thousand
acres have been lost by coast erosion
nearly sixty thousand acres have been
reclaimed from the sea during the
same period.
The points where Britain is growing
are around the mouths of her rivers.
Biologists calculate that no fewer than
six and a hall million tons OF solid
matters are carried to the sea yearly
by the rivers. The Trent and the
Ouse are more heavily charged with
mud than any other British rivers;
they carry so much solid matter that
in a single tide as much as two inches
of soft mud will be deposited on the
low-lying lands adjacent to their
mouths.
All around the mouths of the Ouse
and the Trent are thousands of acres
of rich cornhelds which in the days OF
George " were wastes of barren mud.
The Thames, too, brings down large
quantities of alluvial matter, and is
continually building up Essex and
northern Kent at the expense of Glou
cestershire and Oxfordshire
Although the Thames is not, COM
paratively speaking, very muddy riv-
er, yet it requires constant dredging
in its lower reaches to keep the chan
mel clear and the "aits" or islands all
show tendency to grow in size.
Not in Our Time.
The work OF foreign rivers in the
way of forming land is colossal. The
whole Of the netherlands, an area
more than half the size of England
and Wales, was carried down by the
Rhine and the Meuse from France,
Belgium and Germany.
Take a river like the giant Missis-
sippi which is one of those most heav-
lily charged with mud. 1t is reckoned
that this great waterway carries down
to the Gulf of Mexico nearly a million
tons OF soil daily
Britain, then, or. any country which
has fair rainfall, tends to become
constantly lower and larger If vol
canic energy ceased it would only be
a matter OF time before all the dry
land fattened out 1t might even grad
TALLY disappear beneath the sea But
don't worry-that won't happen in
orr time