LAND FORMED BY RIVERS. 



321 



suspension by rivers after heavy rains is prodigiously great. Accord- 

 ing to Major Rennell, a glass of water taken from the Ganges at the 

 height of its inundations, yields one fourth sediment. Mr. Barrow 

 says, in his account of China, that the quantity of mud brought down 

 by the Yellow River was found, by calculation founded on experi- 

 ment, to exceed two million solid feet per hour ; and that some miles 

 distant from the sea, the river was three quarters of a mile broad, 

 and was running at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour. A 

 great part of the enormous mass of mud, which is perpetually brought 

 down by the Yellow River, is borne by strong currents from the Yel- 

 low Sea into the Gulf Petchelee, where the stillness of the water al- 

 lows it to subside. Into the same gulf the river of Peking discharges 

 itself; and Mr. Barrow observes, that a great part of the land adjoin- 

 ing this gulf has apparently been formed, by the sand and mud 

 brought into it ; for the tide flows inland one hundred and ten miles, 

 and often inundates the whole country, the general level of which is 

 not more than two feet above the level of the river : indeed, the 

 deepest part of the great gulf of Petchelee does not exceed twelve 

 fathoms; and the prodigious number of sandy islands just appearing 

 above the surface, are said to have been formed within the records of 

 history. — Barrow^s China, p. 492. From the above account, there 

 is every probability that this wide gulf will soon be filled up by allu- 

 vial and marine depositions. The Gulf of Mexico, according to Hum- 

 boldt, is gradually filling by the sand brought into it from the Caribbean 

 Sea on the south side, and from the vast rivers, the Rio del Norte 

 and the Mississippi. 



From several sources of information referred to in the " Asiatic 

 Researches," and from the best accounts of the Portuguese, who 

 first visited India, there is much reason to believe, that the whole 

 country of Malabar, between the Gaut Mountains and the sea, has 

 become dry land at no very remote period. Numerous traditions 

 refer to it. There is an ancient book called " Kerul Oofpiette," or the 

 emerging of the country of Kerul, or Malabar. The book was 

 translated by Jonathan Duncan, Esq. In this account, the forma- 

 tion of the land is ascribed • to supernatural agency ; but it contains 

 many statements that appear highly probable. It was soon inhabited, 

 on account of the fertility of the ground ; but the inhabitants were, 

 at first, driven away by the multitude of serpents, which abounded 

 in the mud and slime of the newly emerged country. In a manu- 

 script account of Malabar, ascribed to the Bishop of Virapli, the 

 seat of a celebrated Roman Catholic seminary, the writer observes, 

 that, by the accounts of the learned natives of that coast, it is little 

 more than 2300 years since the sea came up to the foot of the Ju- 

 kem or Gaut Mountains ; and this he thinks extremely probable, 

 from the nature of the soil, and the quantity of sand, oyster shells, 

 and other fragments, met with on making excavations. It is not un- 

 reasonable to believe that the whole coast was elevated by subterra- 



41 



