482 ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF SEDIMENT DEPOSITED [C H . XIX. 



down the river every hour of every day and night for four 

 months continuously, they would only transport from the 

 higher country to the sea a mass of solid matter equal to that 

 borne down by the Ganges, even in this part of its course, 



iii the four months 



Or the exertions 



of a fleet of about 2,000 such ships going down daily with 

 the same burden, and discharging it into the gulf, would 

 be no more than equivalent to the operations of the great 



river. 



The most voluminous current of lava which has flowed 

 from Etna within historical times was that of 1669. Ferrara, 

 after correcting Borelli's estimate, calculated the quantity 

 of cubic yards of lava in this current at 140,000,000. Now, 

 this would not equal in bulk one-fifth of the sedimentary 

 matter which is carried down in a single year by the Gan- 

 ges past Ghazepoor, according to the estimate above ex- 

 plained ; so that it would require five grand eruptions of 



from 



regions 



volume 



one year to that place. 



Colonel B. Strachey, of the Bengal Engineers, has 



re- 



made, is 500 miles from 



the Ganges has not been joined there by its most im- 

 portant feeders. These drain upon the whole 750 miles d 

 the Himalaya, and no more than 150 miles of that mountain- 

 chain have sent their contributions to the main trunk at 

 Ghazepoor. Below that place, the Ganges is joined by the 

 Gogra, Gunduk, Khosee, and Teesta from the north, to say 

 nothing of the Sone flowing from the south, one of the 

 largest of the rivers which rise in the table-land of central 



India. (See map, fig. 37, p. 471 , 



600 miles of the Himalaya comprise that eastern portion 

 of the basin where the rains are heaviest. (See above, p. Ml.) 

 The quantity of water therefore carried down to ^ e J^*^ 

 probably be four or five times as 



Ghazepoor. ^ . ,j ie 



The Brahmapootra, according to Major Wilcox, m 



* Asiatic Researches, toI. xvii. p. 466. 



) Moreover the remaining 



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