508 DEPOSITS OF TUSCAN EIVEES. 



to be protected from wash by forests ; and tbere is as little ques- 

 tion that the quantity borne out to sea by the rivers of Western 

 Italy is much increased by artificial embankments, because they 

 are thereby prevented from spreading over the surface the sedi- 

 mentary matter with which they are charged. The western coast 

 of Tuscany has advanced some miles seawards within a very few 

 centuries. The bed of the sea, for a long distance, has been 

 raised, and of course the relative elevation of the land above it 

 lessened ; harbors have been filled up and destroyed ; long lines 

 of coast-dunes have been formed, and the diminished inclination 

 of the beds of the rivers near their outlets has caused their waters 

 to overflow their banks and convert them into pestilential marshes. 

 The territorial extent of "Western Italy has thus been considerably 

 increased, but the amount of soil habitable and cultivable by 

 man has been, in a still higher proportion, diminished. The 

 coast of ancient Etruria was filled with great commercial towns, 

 and their rural environs were occupied by a large and prosperous 

 population. But maritime Tuscany has long been one of the 

 most unhealthy districts in Christendom ; the famous Etruscan 

 mart of Populonia has scarcely an inhabitant ; the coast is almost 

 absolutely depopulated, and malarious fevers have extended 

 their ravages far into the interior. 



These results are certainly not to be ascribed whoUy to human 

 action. They are, in a large proportion, due to geological causes 

 over which man has no control. The soil of much of Tuscany 

 becomes pasty, almost fluid even, as soon as it is moistened, and 

 when thoroughly saturated with water, it flows hke a river. Such 

 a soil as this would not be completely protected by woods, and, 

 indeed, it would now be difficult to confine it long enough to al- 

 low it to cover itself with forest vegetation. ^Nevertheless, it cer- 

 tainly was once chiefly wooded, and the rivers which flow through 

 it must then have been much less charged with earthy matter 

 than at present, and they must have carried into the sea a smaller 

 proportion of their sediment when they were free to deposit it 

 on their banks than since they have been confined by dikes. 



It is, in general, true that the intervention of man has hitherto 

 seemed to insure the final exhaustion, ruin and desolation of 

 every province of nature which he has reduced to his dominion. 

 Attila was only giving an energetic and picturesque expression 



