MUD. 131 



from the uplands. The basins of Maggiore, Como, 

 Lugano, and Garda are by origin deep hollows scooped 

 out long since during the Great Ice Age by the pressure 

 of huge glaciers that then spread far down into what is 

 now the poplar-clad plain of Lombardy. But ever since 

 the ice cleared away, and the torrents began to rush 

 headlong down the deep gorges of the Val Leventina and 

 the Val Maggia, the mud has been hard at work, doing 

 its level best to fill those great ice- worn bowls up again. 

 Near the mouth of each main stream it has already suc- 

 ceeded in spreading a fan-shaped delta. I will not insult 

 you by asking you at the present time of day whether you 

 have been over the St. Gothard. In this age of trains de 

 luxe I know to my cost everybody has been everywhere. 

 No chance of pretending to superior knowledge about 

 Japan or Honolulu ; the tourist knows them. Very well, 

 then ; you must remember as you go past Bellinzona 

 revolutionary little Bellinzona with its three castled 

 crags you look down upon a vast mud flat by the mouth 

 of the Ticino. Part of this mud flat is already solid land, 

 but part is mere marsh or shifting quicksand. That is 

 the first stage in the abolition of the lakes : the mud is 

 annihilating them. 



Maggiore, indeed, least fortunate of the three main 

 sheets, is being attacked by the insidious foe at three 

 points simultaneously. At the upper end, the Ticino, 

 that furious radical river, has filled in a large arm, which 

 once spread far away up the valley towards Bellinzona. 

 A little lower down, the Maggia near Locarno carries in 

 a fresh contribution of mud, which forms another fan- 

 shaped delta, and stretches its ugly mass half across the 



K 2 



