coast-lines

Updated: May 17, 2025

The deposits of slime would reduce its depth, and perhaps, in the course of ages, divide it into an inland and an open sea, the former of which, receiving no supply from rivers, would, as in the case of the northern part of the Gulf of California, soon be dried up by evaporation, and its whole area added to the Africo-Arabian desert; the waters of the latter would be more or less freshened, and their immensely rich marine fauna and flora changed in character and proportion, and, near the mouth of the river, perhaps even destroyed altogether; its navigable channels would be altered in position and often quite obstructed; the flow of its tides would be modified by the new geographical conditions; the sediment of the river would form new coast-lines and lowlands, which would be covered with vegetation, and probably thereby produce sensible climatic changes.

George P. Marsh - The Earth as Modified by Human Action