4r6 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE 



forming a regular llratum at the bottom of the 



fea. 



370. The quantity of detritus brought down 

 by the rivers, and diftributed in this manner over 

 the bottom of the fea, is fo great, that feveral 

 narrow feas have been thereby rendered fenfi- 

 bly fhallower. The Baltic has been computed to 

 decreafe in depth at the rate of forty inches in a 

 hundred years. The Yellow Sea, which is a large 

 gulf contained between the coaft of China and the 

 peninfula of Corea, receives fo much mud from 

 the great rivers that r 



takes 



colo 



as 



well 



name, from that 



fiance , and the European mariners, who have 

 lately navigated it, obferved, that the mud was 

 drawn up by the fhips, fo as to be viiible in 



their wake to a confiderable diilance *. 



Com- 



putations have been made of the time that it 

 will require to fill up this gulf, and to with- 

 draw it entirely from the dominion of the ocean : 

 but the data are not fufficiently exad to afford 

 any precife refult, and are no doubt particular- 

 ly defedive from this caufe, that much of the 

 earth carried into the gulf by the rivers, mult 

 be carried out of it by the currents and tides, 



and the finer parts wafted probably to great di- 



flances 



* Staunton's Accoui^it of the Embafly to China, vol. I 



p. 448. 



