erior animals avoid them; and the monuments of such
disastrous inundations must be looked for in great abundance in strata
of all ages, if the surface of our planet has always been governed by
the same laws. When we reflect on the general order and tranquillity
that reigns in the rich and populous delta of Bengal, notwithstanding
the havoc occasionally committed by the depredations of the ocean, we
perceive how unnecessary it is to attribute the imbedding of successive
races of animals in older strata to extraordinary energy in the causes
of decay and reproduction in the infancy of our planet, or to those
general catastrophes and sudden revolutions so often resorted to.

_Deposits in the delta._--The quantity of mud held in suspension by the
waters of the Ganges and Brahmapootra is found, as might be expected, to
exceed that of any of the rivers alluded to in this or the preceding
chapters; for, in the first place, their feeders flow from mountains of
unrivalled altitude, and do not clear themselves in any lakes, as does
the Rhine in the Lake of Constance, or the Rhone in that of Geneva. And,
secondly, their whole course is nearer the equator than that of the
Mississippi, or any great river, respecting which careful experiments
have been made, to determine the quantity of its water and earthy
contents. The fall of rain, moreover, as we have before seen, is
excessive on the southern flanks of the first range of mountains which
rise from the plains of Hindostan, and still more remarkable is the
quantity sometimes poured down in one day. (See above, p. 200.) The sea,
where the Ganges and Brahmapootra discharge their main stream at the
flood season, only recovers its transparency at the distance of from 60
to 100 miles from the delta; and we may take for granted that the
current continues to transport the finer particles much farther south
than where the surface water first becomes clear. The general slope,
therefore, of the new strata must be extremely gentle. According to the
best charts, there is a gradual deepening from four to about sixty
fathoms, as we proceed from the base of the delta to the distance of
about one hundred miles into the Bay of Bengal. At some few points
seventy, or even one hundred, fathoms are obtained at that distance.

One remarkable exception, however, occurs to the regularity of the shape
of the bottom. Opposite the middle of the delta, at the distance of
thirty or forty miles from the coast, a