THE HUMAN SPECIES. 69 





 aspect ; and the similarity was much more evident in 



early times. Spain, having no deltas, with only a few 

 shoals formed by the Tagus, Ebro, and Llobregat, is 

 surrounded, on three sides, by very deep seas, close up 

 to the shore. 



Farther eastward, within the Mediterranean, the 

 coast of France presents a totally different aspect, for 

 the whole extent of the shores, with little exception, 

 are low, belted on the sea side by a shingly beach, some 

 hundred yards in breadth, and having behind it salt 

 water lagoons a mile or more in diameter, but only a 

 few feet deep. This breakwater of shingle extends to 

 near Aigues Mortes, and the delta of the Rhone ; for 

 that river has evidently supplied the materials for it. 

 At some distance, facing the Mediterranean, a chain of 

 lofty hills contains lavas and extinct craters, particu- 

 larly about Nismes and Montpellier, and again in the 

 department of the Aude, where fossiliferous caverns 

 exist, which will be noticed in the sequel. The hills 

 trend, on one side, towards the eastern Pyrenees, and, 

 on the other, ascending the course of the Rhone, become 

 connected with the Alps; and assuming the name of 

 Vogesians, display basaltic formations and craters, that 

 connect them with the basin of Neuwied. The delta of 

 the last named river is of considerable size, with a gra- 

 dual but slow progress in the sea ; it having been de- 

 monstrated, by measuring the distance between the fossa 

 Mariana and the sea, that from the time of Marius to 

 the present, a period of nearly 2000 years, only about 

 1000 yards have- been added to the shore. 



