LEVELLING EFFECT OF WATER. 15 



ling water, and robbed of their supports, are tum- 

 bling headlong. Every brook, and every river, 

 more or less, according to its speed, is bearing 

 downwards earth and rolling stones, and, where its 

 stream is slackened, is leaving them as a settlement 

 of flood-soil. "Where the rivers run but slowly, their 

 bottom is raised; where they swiftly rush along, 

 the sea-bed at their mouth is filled up by degrees. 

 Thus have the Netherlands been won from the sea, 

 step by step, by the burden set down by the Ehine 

 at its journey's end; and thus has Lower Egypt 

 been built up by the rubbish shot by the Nile. 

 And so we see the coasts at the Mississippi's mouth 

 stretched outwards almost year by year, by the 

 huge bulk of earth and tree-trunks flooded down 

 by the mighty river. 



