NOTES ON THE SIAMESE PROVINCES OF KOOWI, &C. 67 



sloping from the hills to the sea, one finds extensive beds of 

 clay almost of one level and sloping towards the sea, and over 

 this again great beds of evidently sea-rolled gravel also com- 

 paratively at one level and of an even thickness, lying some 

 450 feet above the present sea level. The hills have their 

 sloping sides to the mainland, and their steep sides — often 

 sea-marked cliffs — to the sea. Then again (see vertical 

 section across Province of Bangtaphan at lower right-hand 

 corner of map ) going towards and within two miles of the 

 sea, one crosses undulating and wavy old sea beaches of sand 

 following each other in rapid succession. Lem Tong Lan 

 ( vide section) is a hill standing out to the sea with the 

 usual characteristic shape and joined to the land by a 

 muddy isthmus, over which old inhabitants say it used to 

 be possible to sail at high water with a boat, which is now 

 impossible. The section running through Koh Yeu shows 

 that island with its sloping side in very shallow water towards 

 the land, while that towards the surf is steep and faces deep 

 water. The shape of those islands and hills, this little tongue 

 of land joining Lem Tong Lan to the mainland, these old sea 

 beaches, the limestone caves, and the other recent geological 

 formations even in the absence of recent marine remains, 

 seem to point to the land having risen and still to be rising, 

 but of course in this extension seawards of the land deposition 

 has played a considerable part. 



The River System and the Effects of Deposition. 



In this narrow strip of country the rivulets from the main 

 range and subsidiary hills meet on the plain below to form 

 considerable streams which, running over beds of sand and 

 gravel, make on the whole a straight course across the plain 

 to the sea. One of those streams has seldom more than 150 

 square miles of a drainage area, but the river of Champoon, 

 like the large streams draining the other side, and like the 

 rivers of the Peninsula in general, runs parallel to the main 

 range of hills for the greater part of its course until, near its 

 termination, it turns outwards to end in the sea, and thus 

 drains an area of about 450 square miles — three times that of 



