in its relation to Agriadturc. 
435 
the lofty rklgo whicli separates its bed iVoin tliat of the Loire, 
tlie two rivers thus Howiufi; side bv side in opposite directions; 
and thence to the Mediterranean, through a vast alluvial plain 
having no special geological feature. Its principal aflluents, with 
the exception of the Saonc, come I'roin its left bank. Of these 
the Arve descends from Mont Blanc, the Isere and its allluent 
th(! Arc, from the wild peaks of the Savoisian Alps, traversing 
metamorphic and crystalline strata. The Durance, springs from 
the glaciers of Mount Genevre, amidst serpentine rocks, then 
meets the Jurassic formation, and lastly the tertiary strata, until 
it reaches the Rhone at Avignon. 
The Saone gives at Lyons, on an average, 55,000 gallons per 
second : at the lowest ebb this quantity is sometimes reduced to 
13,200. In times of freshets, such as that which took place in 
1840, it gave about 880,000. The Rhone, when at its lowest 
ebb, gauges at Lyons 55,000 gallons per second. Its mean gauge, 
above its junction with the Saone, is 143,000. It pours into the 
sea through its two mouths no less than 4,444,000 gallons per 
second, when at the lowest ebb. In 1840 it gauged at Lyons no 
less than 1,320,000 gallons per second. 
The Stagnant Waters of France. 
Although running waters may, at intervals more or less fre- 
quent, occasion disastrous havoc, yet on the whole they are 
productive of immense benefit to mankind in a variety of ways, 
promoting every interest of civilised life, but especially agricul- 
ture. Not so, however, with stagnant water, which may be 
pronounced an evil unattended by a single redeeming advantage. 
Stagnant water is incompatible with the higher forms of organic 
life, whether in the vegetable or animal kingdom, and the first 
efforts of civilization have always been directed to the removal of 
that evil. Where these have proved ineffectual, the tide of men 
has invariably abandoned the spot to the lower forms of being 
which haunt these monotonous and, in our estimation, solitary 
wastes. 
In England — thanks to the indomitable energy of the nation 
— this evil scarcely demands attention ; its stagnant waters are 
getting more and more a thing of the past ; the great eastern 
Fens are teeming with life, health, and fertility. Everywhere 
water finds an escape, although much remains to be done to 
expedite and regulate its exit. 
But when it is stated that there are no less than 1,125,000 
acres of swamps and undrained marshy land in France, it will 
at once appear that an examination of the water economy of that 
country could not be complete without a consideration of that 
evil. The aforesaid total does not include the area of lakes. 
