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Ch. XIX.] 'THE SWATCH' IN THE BAY OF BENGAL. 475 



place, their feeders flow from mountains of nnrivailed alti- 



tude, and 



emselves 



Rhine in the Lake of Constance, or the Rhone in that of 



And, secondly, their whole course is nearer the 



Geneva 

 equator 



than that 



Mississippi, or any great river, 

 oeriments have been made, to de- 



termine the quantity of its water and earthy contents. The 

 fall of rain, moreover, as we have before seen, is excessive on 



mountains 



Hindoostan 



remarkable 



the quantity sometimes poured down in one day, (See above, 



p. 330.) 



ahmapoot 



charge their main stream at the flood season, only recovers 



om 



the delta ; and we may take for granted that the current con- 

 tinues to transport the finer particles much farther south 

 than where the surface water first becomes clear, 

 ral slope, therefore, of the new strata must be 



■entle . 



The gene- 

 e extremely 

 According to the best charts, there is a gradual 

 deepening from four to about sixty fathoms, as we proceed 

 from the base of the delta to the distance of about one hun- 

 dred miles into the Bay of Bengal. At some few points 

 seventy, or even one hundred, fathoms are obtained at that 



distance. 



One remarkable exception, however, occurs to the regu- 

 larity of the shape of the bottom. Opposite the middle of 

 the delta, at the distance of thirty or forty miles from the 

 coast, there is a deep submarine valley called, the ' swatch of 

 no ground/ about fifteen miles in breadth, where soundings 

 of 180, and even 300, fathoms fail to reach the bottom. (See 



momenon is the mor 



mi 



map, p. 471.) This ph 



since the depression runs 



line of shoals ; and not only do the waters charged with 



sediment pass over it continually, but, during the monsoons, 



II — — -m m 1 ^ ■ 



mud 



mud 



direction towards the delta. As the 



for eighty miles farther into the gulf, a considerable thickness 

 of matter must have been deposited in ' the swatch. 5 We 

 may conclude, therefore, either that the original depth of this 



