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Show 244 DELTA OF TilE GANGl~ S. the fresh-water, but the common crocodile frequents both fresh and salt; being much larger and fiercer in salt and brackish water. These animals swarm in the brackish water along the line of sand-banks where the advance of the delta is most rapid. Hundreds of them are seen together in the creeks of the delta, or basking in the sun on the shoals without. They will attack men and cattle, destroying the natives when bathing, and tame and wild animals which come to drink. " I have not unfrequently ," says Mr. Colebrooke, " been witness to the horrid spectacle of seeing a floating corpse seized by a crocodile with such avidity, that he half emerged above the water with his prey in his mouth." The geologist will not fail to observe how peculiarly the habits and distribution of these saurians expose them to become imbedded in those horizontal strata of fine mud which are annually deposited over many hundred square miles in the Bay of Bengal. The inhabitants of the land, when they happen to be submerged, are usually destroyed by these voracious reptiles; but we may suppose the remains of the saurians themselves to be continually entombed in the new formations. It sometimes happens, at the season when the periodical flood is at its height, that a strong gale of wind, conspirincr with a high spring-tide, checks the descending current of the river, and gives rise to most destructive inundations. From this cause, in the year 1763, the waters at Luckipour rose six feet above their ordinary level, and the inhabitants of a considerable dis. trict, with their houses and cattle, were totally swept away. The population of all oceanic deltas are particularly exposed to suffer by such catastrophes, recurring at considerable intervals of time; and we may safely assume, that such tragical events have happened again and again . since the Gangetic delta was inhabited by man. If human experience and fore· thought cannot always guard against these calamities, still less can the inferior animals avoid them ; and the monuments of such disastrous inundations must be looked for in great abun· dance in strata of all ages, if the surface of our planet has always been governed by the same laws. When we reflect on the general order and tranquillity that reigns in the rich and populous delta of Bengal, notwithstanding the havoc occasionally committed by the depredations of the ocean, we perceive DELTA OF 1'IIE MISSISSIPPI, 245 how unnecessary it j"' to att "b t I . " ri u e t 1c 1mb dd' f . races of animals in older st ra t a to extraordc· m. g o succ·e ss! ve causes of decay and repr·odu t' . c Ion m t 11 e · fim m Y efn ergy m the or to those general catastr h d 111 ancy o ~ur planet, sorted to by cosmogonists. op cs an sudden revolutions re- As the delta of the Ganges m b . formed on the borders of tll ay e .cons~dered a. type of thoEe e ocean It will b accumulate examples of others on a n' o 1e ss maoc- u'fni necessary to at the mouths of the Orinoco d A t">m cent sea 1e , as these indeed it will b an mazon, for example. To ' ' e necessary to revert wl the agency of currents . 'l'he t'Id es m. t.Il e l\tiex'l en wGe Itfr eat of feeble, that the delta of the Miss. . . h ICan u are so mediate character between an ISSIPJH ads some.what of an inter-oceamc an mediter. d I A long narrow tongue of land is rotr .1 a~ean e ta. of the banks of the river and 11 .P u~ed, consistmg simply ' ·' avmcr prectsel tl ance as in the inland plains dm·incr ~I . y . le s?me appear-when nothing appears above wat ~ b le PI erli~diCal mundations, I . I . er ut t le licrher P ·t f h s opmg g acis which we before described ~ at o t at has advanced many leagues since New 0~·1 This tong~e of land submarine deposits are also in r cr eans ';as bmlt. Great over the bottom of the se PI .oohrelss, stretchmg far and wide . a, w 1Ic las become th 1 considerable area extreme] 1 ll . roug 1out a . d I y s la ow, not exceedmcr t .1! I m ept 1. Opposite the mouth of the M' . . o. en lat Joms of drift trees, brouo-ht down ev . ISSISSippl large rafts . o ery sprm(}' are tt d mto a net-work many ya.rcls 1. tl· . I o' rna e together h 11 11cmess and t t h' undreds of square Jeacrues * Th f ' s re c mg over over with a nne mud oon wl . ·1. tl ey]a terwards become covered ' uc 1 o 1er ayers oft . d . the year following u llti'l 1 I ees are eposlted ' numerous a terna.f f ?'etable matter are accumulated A Ions o ~arthy and ve- In re2'ard to the stt·ata c . . n observatiOn of Darby ..., ' omposinO' part f 1 . d ' attention. In the steep b k of I o t us elta, deserves of the Mississi i ' h. h an s o t le Atchafalaya, that arm "the raft," thtbll v ~c we ~efo:e aUuded to when describing first, an upper stra~:mmg sect·I~~ Is ?bser;able at low water:- ' cons1stmcr mvariabJ f bl . common to the banks of tll M' ~ . . y o ueish clay, f l e lSSISSlppl • bel th' o rec ochreous earth I' ' ow Is a stratum bl pecu tar to Red R" d . ue clay of theM' . ,· . . Iver, un er whiCh the ISSissippi agam appears t '.. and th'I S arrange- * Captain Hall's Travels in North America vol ... 33 t D b 1 , ' • Ul , p. 8, ar y s Lomsiana, p. 103. |