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We know this was an inland sea, and had no connection with the ocean, for all the fossils and sediments deposited in it reveal that they are fresh-water organisms. In this sea, as in the earlier oceans, vast deposits of sediment were made in the early Eocene period, and another period of subsidence occurred.
Entering this basin, the tide, moving with considerable velocity, bears in quantities of sediment. In the basin, the motion being arrested, this sediment falls to the bottom, and serves to raise its level.
While the fellow was bringing them he drew out a promissory note to the full amount, which he signed, and, as the man came in with the bottles and glasses, he desired him to be off; he filled out a glass for me, and, while he thought my eyes were off, for I was putting up his note at the time, he dropped something slyly into it, no doubt to sweeten it; but I saw it all, and, when he handed it to me, I said, with an emphasis which he might or might not understand: "There is some sediment in this; I'll not drink it."
How they are at home we can't tell; but from the moment they enter the chapel and touch the holy water stoops, which somehow persist in retaining a good thick dark sediment at the bottom, to the time they walk out, the utmost earnestness prevails amongst them.
But still I like to think it was for a better reason, that his conduct then bore out my theory that there are streaks of human kindliness and right-thinking in all of us buried deep though they may be by many an acquired stratum of callousness and egoism: the sediment of life caking upon the soul.... But as for Sam, as soon as he recovered he shook his head in thoughtful deprecation.
We shall hereafter see that the theory which accounts for the ordinary form of atolls, apparently includes this occasional peculiarity in their structure. In the midst of a group of atolls, there sometimes occur small, flat, very low islands of coral formation, which probably once included a lagoon, since filled up with sediment and coral-reefs.
As a result of this action, strata would be formed, shewing stratification diagonally as well as horizontally, represented in section as a number of banks which had seemingly been thrown down one above the other, ending in thin wedge-shaped terminations where the particular supply of sediment to which each owed its formation had failed.
Lacking it, he has been forced to build either on the shifting sands of his own fancy, or on the wrecks and sediment of the past. Geometry provides this sure foundation. We may have to work hard and dig deep, but the results will be worth the effort, for only on such a foundation can arise a temple which is beautiful and strong.
In fact, this nearly exact balancing between the supply of sediment and the amount of subsidence is probably a rare contingency; for it has been observed by more than one palaeontologist that very thick deposits are usually barren of organic remains, except near their upper or lower limits.
Channels, opened in low water, were quickly filled up with sediment in high water, and sometimes a severe storm would wash in enough sand from the gulf to undo the result of months of dredging. As early as 1832 a ship canal near Fort Saint Philip, which should cut through the river bank out to the gulf, had been planned, and this solution had been approved of by the Louisiana legislature.
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