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The Rumanian campagna is a second Lombardy, not because of the high state of its agriculture, but because of the fertility of its soil, the beauty of the sky, and of the distant views. Unfortunately there are no mountain barriers to protect it against the cold north-easterly winds which predominate throughout the year. Extremes of cold and heat have to be encountered.[46] The vines have to be covered with earth to protect them against the colds of winter; and in South-eastern Wallachia, which is most exposed to the violence of the winds, it happens sometimes that herds of cattle and horses, flying before a snow-storm, precipitate themselves into the floods of the Danube. Several districts suffer from want of rain, and are veritable steppes. Amongst these are the plains of the Baragan, between the Danube and Yalomitza, where bustards abound, and a tree is not met with for miles.

Geologically we meet with a regular succession of formations, from the granite on the mountain summits to the alluvial deposits along the banks of the Danube. The rocks encountered on these southern slopes of the Carpathians are of the same kind as those found in Galicia on their northern slopes, and they yield the same mineral products, such as rock-salt, gypsum, lithographic stones, and petroleum. Tertiary strata predominate in the plains, but to the east of Ploiesti and Bucharest only quaternary deposits of clay and pebbles are met with, in which are found the bones of mammoths, elephants, and mastodons. The muddy rivers which traverse these plains have excavated themselves sinuous beds, and resemble large ditches.

The plain of Rumania, like that of Lombardy, is an ancient gulf of the sea filled up by the débris washed down from the mountain sides. But though the sea has retired, the Danube remains, pouring out vast volumes of water, and offering great advantages to navigation. At the famous defile of the Iron Gate, where this river enters the plain, its bed has a depth of 155 feet, its surface lies 66 feet above the level of the Black Sea, and its volume exceeds that of the combined rivers of Western Europe, from the Rhone to the Rhine. The Romans, in spite of this, had thrown a bridge across the river, immediately below the Iron Gate, which was justly looked upon as one of the wonders of the world. This work of architecture, which Apollodorus of Damas had erected in honour of Trajan, was pulled down by order of the Emperor Hadrian, who was anxious to save the expenses of the garrison required for its protection. There only remain now the two abutments, and when the waters are low the foundations of sixteen out of the twenty piers which supported the bridge may still be seen. A Roman tower, which has given name to the little town of Turnu Severin, marks the spot where the Romans first placed their foot upon the soil of Dacia. The passage from Servia to Rumania is as important as it was of yore, but modern industry has not yet replaced Trajan’s bridge.

The Danube, like most rivers of our northern hemisphere, presses upon its right bank, and this accounts for the difference between its Wallachian and Bulgarian banks. The latter, gnawed by the floods, rises steeply into little hills and {160} terraces, whilst the former rises gently, and merges almost imperceptibly in the plains of Wallachia. Swamps, lakes, creeks, and the remains of ancient river beds form a riverine network, enclosing numerous islands and sand-banks. These channels are subject to continual change, and to the south of the Yalomitza may still be seen a line of swamps and lagoons, which marks the course of an ancient river no longer existing. The lowlands on the Wallachian side of the Danube are constantly increasing in extent, whilst Bulgaria continuously suffers losses of territory. The latter, however, is amply compensated for this by the salubrity of its soil and the fine sites for commercial emporiums which it offers. It is said that the beaver, which has been exterminated almost in every other part of Europe, is still common in these half-drowned lands of Wallachia.

At a distance of thirty-eight miles from the sea, in a straight line, the Danube strikes against the granitic heights of the Dobruja, and abruptly turns to the north, subsequently to spread out into a delta. In the course of this détour it receives its last tributaries of importance, viz. the Moldavian Sereth and the Pruth. Thirty miles below the mouth of the latter the Danube bifurcates. Its main branch, known as that of Kilia, conveys about two-thirds of the entire volume of its waters to the Black Sea, and forms the frontier between Rumania and Turkish Bulgaria. The southern branch, or that of Tulcha, flows entirely through Turkish territory. It separates into two branches, of which that of Sulina is the main artery of navigation.

The main branch of the river is of the utmost importance when considering the changes wrought upon the surface of the earth through aqueous agencies. Below Ismail it ramifies into a multitude of channels, which change continuously, new channels being excavated, whilst others become choked with alluvial deposits carried down by the floods. Twice the waters of the river are reunited into a single channel before they finally spread out into a secondary delta jutting into the Black Sea. The exterior development of this new land amounts to about twelve miles, and supposing the sea to be of a uniform depth of thirty-three feet, it would advance annually at the rate of 660 feet. Yet, in spite of this rapid increase, the coast, at the Kilia mouth, juts out far less to the east than it does in the southern portion of the delta, and we may conclude from this that the ancient gulf of the sea, now filled up by the alluvial deposits brought down by the Kilia branch, was far larger and deeper than those to the south.[47] On examining a map of the Danubian delta, it will be found that, by prolonging the coast-line of Bessarabia towards the south, it crosses the delta. This is the ancient coast. It rises above the half-drowned plains like an embankment, through which the branches of the river forced themselves a passage to the sea. The alluvium brought down by the Sulina and St. George’s mouths has been spread over a vast plain lying outside this embankment, whilst that carried down through what is at present the main branch forms only a small archipelago of ill-defined islands {161} beyond it. We may conclude from this that the latter is of more recent origin than the other arms.

In the course of its gradual encroachment upon the sea, the river has cut off several lakes of considerable extent. On the coast between the mouth of the Dniester and the delta of the Danube there are several lagoons, or limans, of inconsiderable depth, the water of which evaporates during the heat of summer, depositing a thin crust of salt. In their general configuration, the nature of the surrounding land, and parallelism of the rivers which flow into them, these sheets of water are very much like the lakes met with more to the west, as far as the mouth of the Pruth. These latter, however, are filled with fresh water, and the sandy barriers at their lower ends separate them not from the Black Sea, but from the Danube. There can be no doubt that these lakes were anciently gulfs of the sea, similar in all respects to the lagoons still existing along the coast. The Danube, by converting its ancient gulf into a delta, separated them from the sea, and their saline water was replaced by fresh water carried down by the rivers. The existing saline lagoons will undergo the same metamorphosis, in proportion as the delta of the Danube gains upon the sea.

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