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Ch. XIX.] SEDIMENT BROUGHT DOWN BY THE GANGES 



481 



feet per second. This gives a total of 6,082,041,600 cubic 

 feet for the discharge in the 122 days of the rain. The pro- 

 portion of sediment in the waters at other seasons was com- 



i • i • • • n iii iit .-- 



amount during the five 



paratively insignificant, the total 

 winter months being only 247,881,600 cubic feet, and during 

 the three months of hot weather 38,154,240 cubic feet. The 

 total annual discharge, then, would be 6,368,077,440 cubic 



feet. 



mud 



228 



i 



square miles, or a square space, each side of which should 



ght of one foot. To give some idea of 



miles 



the magnitude of this result, we will assume that the specific 

 gravity of the dried mud is only one half that of granite (it 

 would, however, be more) : in that case, the earthy matter 

 discharged in a year would equal 3,184,038,720 cubic feet of 

 granite. Now about 1 2| cubic feet of granite weigh one ton ; 

 and it is computed that the Great Pyramid of Egypt, if it were 

 a solid mass of granite, would weigh about 6,000,000 tons. 

 The mass of matter, therefore, carried down annually would, 

 according to this estimate, more than equal in weight and 

 bulk forty-two of the great pyramids of Egypt, and that 

 borne down in the four months of the rains would equal 

 forty pyramids. But if, without any conjecture as to what 

 may have been the specific gravity of the mud, we attend 

 merely to the weight of solid matter actually proved by Mr. 

 Everest to have been contained in the water, we find that the 

 number of tons' weight which passed down in the 122 days of 

 the rainy season was 339,413,760, which would 

 weight of fifty-six pyramids and a half; and in the whole 



give 



the 



ramids 



The base of the Great Pyramid of Egypt covers eleven acres, 

 and its perpendicular height is about five hundred feet. It 



mind 



l 



mightj 



operation, so tranquilly and almost insensibly carried on by 

 tne Ganges, as it glides through its alluvial plain, even at a 



sea. It may, however, be 



from 



stated, that if a fleet of more than eighty Indiamen, each 

 freighted with about 1400 tons' weight of mud, were to sail 



VOL. I. 



I I 





