4 071 Terrestrial or Epigeic Deposits 



any hypotheses at variance with the causes which are at present 

 in action. 



Hydraulic Laws of internal Waters. — The year is divided, in 

 a great portion of the Mediterranean shores, as in the tropics, 

 into two distinct seasons ; the one rainy, which lasts from four 

 to five montlis, and the other dry ; an observation of great im- 

 portance, when studying the whole of the recent deposits in the 

 Morea. The actual quantity of rain which falls exceeds one 

 metre, at least on the southern and western slopes. One part of 

 this enormous mass of water is carried directly to the sea with 

 great rapidity, owing to the inclination and denudation of the 

 mountains. The surplus is collected in the high enclosed basins 

 of the interior, or loses itself in the clefts, with which the forma- 

 tion compact chalk is traversed on all sides, and in both cases 

 is the source of the real subterraneous rivers, which traverse 

 the mountains, and are poured out on the shore, or below the 

 level of the sea. The springs formed by such rivers are called 

 by the Greeks Kephalovrysi, or heads of waters, and these are 

 accurately distinguished by the inhabitants from springs of an 

 ordinary nature. 



The division of the surface into enclosed basins, the greater 

 part being without permanent lakes, is not peculiar to the Morea, 

 but is found throughout Greece, Italy, part of the Iberian pen- 

 insula, Asia Minor, Syria, in -short, in all the zone where se- 

 condary formations of the meridional basin prevail. 



In all other parts of Europe, the waters being directed in 

 their course by a small number of large inclined planes, unite 

 with each other regularly from the ridges of the continents to 

 the sea, or branch out around some principal trunks. The con- 

 sequence of this is, that the geographers of those countries, in- 

 fluenced by forms with which they were best acquainted, and 

 by a systematic notion of the formation of depressions or valleys 

 by water, considered the regular disposition as a general law, 

 and the other as an exception or a mere accident. 



If, however, the regularity extended over the great plains of 

 the north of Europe, from the enclosing of the waters, to the 

 shape and relations of the valleys, it would do so more com- 

 pletely in mountainous districts, where we ought to see basins 

 which are divided into stages, again united by clefts, as in the 

 whole of the southern zone. The pre- occupation of systematic 



