134 MUD. 



if you look at them close, reveal themselves as tribu- 

 taries of the Po, which once flowed separately into the 

 Lombard bay ; the Adige, the Piave, the Tagliamento 

 farther along the coast, reveal themselves equally as 

 tributaries of the future Po, when once the great river 

 shall have filled up with its mud the space between 

 Trieste and Venice, though for the moment they empty 

 themselves and their store of detritus into the open 

 Adriatic. 



Fix your eyes for a moment on Venetia proper, and 

 you will see how this has all happened and is still 

 happening. Each mountain torrent that leaps from the 

 Tyrolese Alps bring down in its lap a rich mass of mud, 

 which has gradually spread over a strip of sea some 

 forty or fifty miles wide, from the base of the mountains 

 to the modern coast-line of the province. Near the sea 

 or, in other words, at the temporary outlet it forms 

 banks and lagoons, of which those about Venice are the 

 best known to tourists, though the least characteristic. 

 For miles and miles between Venice and Trieste the 

 shifting north shore of the Adriatic consists of nothing 

 but such accumulating mud banks. Year after year 

 they push farther seaward, and year after year fresh 

 islets and shoals grow out into the waves beyond the 

 temporary deltas. In time, therefore, the gathering 

 mud banks of these Alpine torrents must join the greater 

 mud bank that runs rapidly seaward at the delta of the 

 Po. As soon as they do so the rivers must rush together, 

 and what was once an independent stream, emptying 

 itself into the Adriatic, must become a tributary of the 

 Po, helping to swell the waters of that great united 



