263 



depositions increases in an alarming degree, owing" 

 (in his opinion) "to the diminished slope of the streams, 

 which was a necessary consequence of the prolonga- 

 tion of their bed, to the confinement of the waters be- 

 tween dykes, and to the facility with which the in- 

 creased cultivation of the ground enabled the mountain 

 torrents, which flowed into them, to carry away the soil. 

 Owing to these causes, the boy called Sacca di Goro, 

 was very soon filled up, and the two promontories, 

 which had been formed by the two former principal 

 mouths of Mazzarno and Toy, w ere united into one 

 vast projecting cape, the most advanced point of which 

 is now about thirty-three thousand metres* beyond the 

 meridian of Adria; so that in the course of two hun- 

 dred years, the mouths or delta of the Po, have gained 

 about fourteen thousand metresf upon the sea.'"J 



Hence it appears, that the delta of the Po has gained 

 upon the Adriatic sea, (by a rough calculation) in the 

 last two hundred years, about eight miles and a half; 

 almost twice as much as it had gained in the preceding 

 four hundred years, from the end of the twelfth to that 

 of the sixteenth century ; and more (in proportion as 

 eight is to six,) than it had gained from the found- 

 ing of the city of Adria to the twelfth century, a pe- 

 riod, probably, of about three thousand years. 



*From nineteen miles seven furlongs and fifteen yards, to 

 twenty miles four furlongs and three yards, English measure, 

 f About eight miles and a half. 

 t See Cimer'i Theory of the Earth, Amcr. edition, p. 2812. 



