EXCAVATION BY TORRENTS. 
249 
There is one effect of the action of torrents which few trav¬ 
ellers on the Continent are heedless enough to pass without 
notice. I refer to the elevation of the beds of mountain 
streams in consequence of the deposit of the debris with which 
they are charged. To prevent the spread of sand and gravel 
over the fields and the deluging overflow of the raging waters, 
the streams are confined by walls and embankments, which are 
gradually built higher and higher as the bed of the torrent is 
raised, so that, to reach a river, you ascend from the fields 
beside it; and sometimes the ordinary level of the stream is 
above the streets and even the roofs of the towns through 
which it passes.* 
rapidly stripped of their timber. Up to 1850, no destructive inundation 
of the Mella had been recorded. Buildings in great numbers had been 
erected upon its margin, and its valley was conspicuous for its rural 
beauty and its fertility. But when the denudation of the mountains had 
reached a certain point, avenging nature began the work of retribution. 
In the spring and summer of 1850 several new torrents were suddenly 
formed in the upper tributary valleys, and on the 14th and 15th of August 
in that year, a fall of rain, not heavier than had been often experienced, 
produced a flood which not only inundated much ground never before 
overflowed, but destroyed a great number of bridges, dams, factories, and 
other valuable structures, and, what was a far more serious evil, swept 
off from the rocks an incredible extent of soil, and converted one of the 
most beautiful valleys of the Italian Alps into a ravine almost as bare and 
as barren as the savagest gorge of Southern France. The pecuniary 
damage was estimated at many millions of francs, and the violence of the 
catastrophe was deemed so extraordinary, even in a country subject to 
similar visitations, that the sympathy excited for the sufferers produced, in 
five months, voluntary contributions for their relief to the amount of 
nearly $200,000 .—Delle Inondazioni del Mella , etc., nella notte del 14 al 15 
Agosto , 1850. 
The author of this remarkable pamphlet has chosen as a motto a pas¬ 
sage from the Vulgate translation of Job, which is interesting as showing 
accurate observation of the action of the torrent: “ Mons cadens definit, 
et saxum transfertur de loco suo ; lapides excavant aqum et alluvione paul- 
latim terra consumitur.”— Job xiv, 18, 19. 
The English version is much less striking, and gives a different sense. 
* Streffleur quotes from Duile the following observations: “ The chan¬ 
nel of the Tyrolese brooks is often raised much above the valleys through 
