HUNGAEY. 



85 



have gradually pushed it back towards the west. The right bank, being exposed 

 to the erosive action of the river, is high, whilst the left bank is composed of 

 alluvial soil, deposited by the rivers of Transylvania. Farther south the Tisza 

 yields to the impulsion given to it by the Danube, and travels to the east. In the 

 time of Trajan and Diocletian the plateau of Titel was on the right of the Tisza ; 

 subsequently it became an island ; and now the river flows to the east of it. 



In travelling towards the west the Tisza has left behind it a wide tract of 

 swamps, intersected by ancient river channels. Some of these resemble the actual 

 river in almost every feature, except that they have no current. The elongated 

 swamp of Er, which connects the Kraszna with the Sebres Koros, to the east of 

 Debreczen, is one of these deserted channels, and after heavy rains the Kraszna 

 flows through it towards the south-west, thus converting the whole of the north- 

 eastern portion of the plain of Hungary into a huge island. The swamps to 



Fig. 54.— The "Ikon Gate." 

 Scale 1 : 100,000. 



2 Miles. 



the east of the Tisza are not only exposed to inundations, whenever the river 

 breaks through the embankments designed to control it, but they also sufler 

 occasionally from a sudden bursting forth of subterranean reservoirs of water. 



Floods in Hungary, after all, are more or less traceable to the Danube. The 

 gorge through which that mighty river escapes to the plains of Rumania is very 

 narrow, and when the snow melts, or heavy rains fall, the superabundant water 

 not being able to escape, the river gradually rises, until the swamps lining its 

 banks are converted into lakes, and the plains for miles above the Iron Gate 

 stand under water. At the mouth of the Temes a lake 200 square miles in 

 extent, and 7 feet deep, is formed. So gentle is the slope of the Hungarian 

 plain that a rise of only 13 feet in the Danube causes the Tisza to flow back as 

 far as Szeged, a distance of 87 miles. 



No embankments along the upper courses of the rivers can protect the 



