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To ignore the existence of this great bay, the most important hydrographical feature of our coast, as Verrazzano, according to the letter, does, and to pretend that no harbor could be found there, in which the diminutive Dauphiny could lie, is, under the circumstances under which this exploration is alleged to have been conducted, to admit that he was never on that part of the coast.
Croll, in 1867, and again, with more exactness, in 1868, deduced from the latest measurement of the sediment transported by European and American rivers the rate of subaerial denudation to which the surface of large continents is exposed, taking especially the hydrographical basin of the Mississippi as affording the best available measure of the average waste of the land.
If the latter were removed during a gradual re-elevation of the country, many old hydrographical basins might reappear, and portions of the loam might alone remain in terraces on the flanks of hills, or on platforms, attesting the vast extent in ancient times of the muddy envelope.
We are not yet well enough acquainted with the geography of Central Africa, or of the interior of South America, to conjecture what hydrographical revolutions might there be wrought; but from the fact that many important rivers in both continents drain extensive table-lands, of moderate elevation and inclination, there is reason to suppose that important changes in the course of those rivers might be accomplished.
Ptolemy of Pelusium based his great work entirely upon that of Marinus, who is believed to have utilised the geographical and hydrographical accumulations of the old Phoenician navigators, besides availing himself of the observations of Hipparchus, and of the accounts given of their travels by various Greek and Roman authors.
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