MUD. 135 



river. The Adige has now just reached this state : its 

 delta is continuous with the delta of the Po, and their 

 branches hiterosculate. The Mincio and the Adda 

 reached it ages since : the Piave and the Liveuia will 

 not reach it for ages. In Eoman days Hatria was still 

 on the sea : it is now some fifteen miles inland. 



From all this you can gather why the existing Po 

 flows far from the Alps and nearer the hase of the 

 Apennines. The Alpine streams in far distant days 

 brought down relatively large f]oods of glacial mud; 

 formed relatively large deltas in the old Lombard bay ; 

 filled up with relative rapidity their larger half of the 

 basin. The Apennines, less lofty, and free from glaciers, 

 sent down shorter and smaller torrents, laden with far 

 less mud, and capable therefore of doing but little 

 alluvial work for the filling in of the future Lombardy. 

 So the river was pushed southward by the Alpine 

 deposits of the northern streams, leaving the great plains 

 of Cisalpine Gaul spread away to the north of it. 



And this land-making action is ceaseless and con- 

 tinuous. About Venice, Chioggia, Maestra, Comacchio, 

 the delta of the Po is still spreading seaward. In the 

 course of ages — if nothing unforeseen occurs meanwhile 

 to prevent it — the Alpine mud will have filled in the 

 entire Adriatic ; and the Ionian Isles will spring like 

 isolated mountain ridges from the Adriatic plain, as the 

 Eugauean hills — those * mountains Euganean ' where 

 Shelley * stood listening to the pa^an with wliich the 

 legioned rocks did hail the sun's uprise majestical ' — • 

 spring in our own time from the dead level of Lombardy. 

 Ouce they in turn were the Euganean islands, and even 



