306 On the Fall of Rivers. 



of its current, but not to such an extent as that the rate of 

 fall can be taken as a scale for the rate of the velocity and 

 force of the current. We call the Danube, the Rhine, and 

 the Elbe, very rapid rivers, and they only exhibit a fall of 1 

 and 2 feet, and very seldom 3 feet, per mile ; but we should 

 not place the Tyt^eed in the same rank of velocity, and yet it 

 has an average fall of nearly 8 feet in its main course from 

 the point of affluence of Biggar Water to the sea, which is a 

 length of 80 miles, and with this fall is freely navigated by 

 small boats, at least so far up as Peebles;* while a descent 

 of only 2 feet in the Danube presents the greatest obstacles 

 to navigation. Thus the mighty Amazon falls but 12 feet 

 in the last 700 miles of its course, or one-fifth of an inch per 

 mile ; yet, from the immense volume of its waters, the colli- 

 sion of its current with the tide of the Atlantic is of the 

 most tremendous description. 



It is obvious from the preceding remarks, that, in com- 

 paring the I'ate of fall of one river with another, the size, 

 that is, the depth and width, of the rivers, should be taken 

 into account. 



The Jordan in point of magnitude ranks with several rivers 

 of Great Britain. Legh compares the Jordan to the Thames 

 below Oxford ; and it appears, in collecting all the different 

 statements for the size of the Jordan between the two lakes, 

 that the average breadth may be considered to be about 30 

 yards, and the depth 8 or 9 feet.f The Dee of Aberdeenshire 

 ranks in size with the Jordan, although it is only the twenty- 

 ninth of the British rivers, in regard to the extent of its basin, 

 and stands also far below the Jordan in this point of com- 

 parison ; but this diffei'ence is balanced by the nature of the 

 climate in which the two basins are situated. The basin of 

 the Dee lies in a very humid region, as it drains a part of 

 those mountainous districts of Scotland which give birth to so 

 many perennial streams ; whilst the basin of the Jordan lies 

 in a region so arid that its tributaries are almost dried up 

 during the summer season ; and amongst those which it does 



* Fullerton's Parliamentary Gazetteer of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 775. 

 t Kioto's Pictorial History of Palestine, vol. ii., p. clxxiv. 



