Fig. 42.
Indeed, the general slope of Switzerland, being from the ridge of the Alps towards the north, it will be observed (Fig. 42) that almost all the large affluents of these rivers running in longitudinal valleys fall in on the south, as, for instance, those of the Isère from Albertville to Grenoble, of the Rhone from its source to Martigny, of the Vorder Rhine from its source to Chur, of the Inn from Landeck to Kufstein, of the Enns from its source to near Admont, of the Danube from its source to Vienna, and as just mentioned, of the Aar from Bern to Waldshut. Hence also, whenever the Swiss rivers running east and west break into a transverse valley, as the larger ones all do, and some more than once, they invariably, whether originally running east or westwards, turn towards the north.
But although we thus get a clue to the general structure of Switzerland, the whole question is extremely complex, and the strata have been crumpled and folded in the most complicated manner, sometimes completely reversed, so that older rocks have been folded back on younger strata, and even in some cases these folds again refolded. Moreover, the denudation by aerial action, by glaciers, frosts, and rivers has removed hundreds, or rather thousands, of feet of strata. In fact, the mountain tops are not by any means the spots which have been most elevated, but those which have been least denuded; and hence it is that so many of the peaks stand at about the same altitude.
THE CONFLICTS AND ADVENTURES OF RIVERS
Our ancestors looked upon rivers as being in some sense alive, and in fact in their "struggle for existence" they not only labour to adapt their channel to their own requirements, but in many cases enter into conflict with one another.
In the plain of Bengal, for instance, there are three great rivers, the Brahmapootra coming from the north, the Ganges from the west, and the Megna from the east, each of them with a number of tributary streams. Mr. Fergusson[53] has given us a most interesting and entertaining account of the struggles between these great rivers to occupy the fertile plain of Bengal.
The Megna, though much inferior in size to the Brahmapootra, has one great advantage. It depends mainly on the monsoon rains for its supply, while the Brahmapootra not only has a longer course to run, but relies for its floods, to a great extent, on the melting of the snow, so that, arriving later at the scene of the struggle, it finds the country already occupied by the Megna to such an extent that it has been driven nearly 70 miles northwards, and forced to find a new channel.
Under these circumstances it has attacked the territory of the Ganges, and being in flood earlier than that river, though later than the Megna, it has in its turn a great advantage.
Whatever the ultimate result may be the struggle continues vigorously. At Sooksaghur, says Fergusson, "there was a noble country house, built by Warren Hastings, about a mile from the banks of the Hoogly. When I first knew it in 1830 half the avenue of noble trees, which led from the river to the house, was gone; when I last saw it, some eight years afterwards, the river was close at hand. Since then house, stables, garden, and village are all gone, and the river was on the point of breaking through the narrow neck of high land that remained, and pouring itself into some weak-banded nullahs in the lowlands beyond: and if it had succeeded, the Hoogly would have deserted Calcutta. At this juncture the Eastern Bengal Railway Company intervened. They were carrying their works along the ridge, and they have, for the moment at least, stopped the oscillation in this direction."
This has affected many of the other tributaries of the Ganges, so that the survey made by Rennell in 1780-90 is no longer any evidence as to the present course of the rivers. They may now be anywhere else; in some cases all we can say is that they are certainly not now where they were then.