So long as the
river is confined between narrow banks, the high rate of the current is
sufficient to force forward the thickened and heavy fluid; but the
instant that the banks are over-topped and the river expands over an
increased area, the rapidity is reduced, and the water, no longer able
to contain the earth in solution, deposits alluvium, and produces a
delta, which must necessarily increase upon every future inundation. The
result must end either in forming a bar at the mouth of the river, or
(as in the Pedias) in THE TOTAL SILTING OF THE EMBOUCHURE, which
extinguishes all traces of a broad channel, but leaves a series of deep
marshes scored by innumerable ditches, to be in their turn filled with
mud when the next flood shall extend over the wide surface and increase
the deposit.
This is the position of the Pedias, and until improved I cannot foresee
a good sanitary prospect for Famagousta, which is situated on the
borders of the swamp. There can be only one engineering method of
preventing the silt, by confining the river between artificial banks,
within a channel sufficiently narrow to ensure a current whose velocity
would carry the heavy fluid directly into the sea. Even should this be
accomplished, and the river be securely banked, the deposit of mud will
then take place within the sea, and will assuredly form a bar; which
will probably affect by silt the neighbouring harbour of Famagousta in
the same manner that the ancient port of Salamis has been completely
obliterated.
Pages:
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146