AND BRITISH CHANNEL. 



487 



West In-, 

 dies. 



Atlantic Ocean, or consider the more sheltered 

 chores, as those of the Adriatic, we shall find an 

 almost invariable tendency to the enlargement of 

 the margin or boundary of the sea. 



Observations to this effect have been obligingly 

 communicated to me by a gentleman resident at 

 the island of Granada, who is also well acquaint- 

 ed with Barbadoes, and all the West India islands 

 to sea-ward, commonly called Leeward Islands^ 

 On several of these he states, that the sea is 

 making a visible impression, and particularly men- 

 tions, that, of late, one side of a street in the town 

 of Granville, in the island of Granada, has been Granada, 

 washed away by the sea. 



A gentleman who visited the city of Venice and 

 the shores of the Adriatic in the summer of 1816, 

 writes me, that the Venetians believe, and confi- 

 dently assert, that their ancient city, founded about 

 1400 years since, must by this time have been al- 

 most entirely washed away and laid in ruins by the 

 increasing advancement of the sea, had it not been 

 protected and defended by a great mole or sea-wall 

 and embankment, which became necessary and has 

 now been erected about eighty years. Any parti- 

 cular description of this mole is perhaps abstractly 

 more a matter of interest to the engineer than to the 

 geologist; but from the magnitude of the work, and 

 the direct purpose to which it is applied, it is pre- 

 sumed, that, even here, its general outline may be 

 given, as affording some additional interest to the 



I i 2 



Venice and 

 the Adria- 

 tic. 



