File:Greatest wonders of the world (1906) (14582835220).jpg

Identifier: greatestwonderso00sing (find matches)
Title: Greatest wonders of the world
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Singleton, Esther, d. 1930
Subjects: Curiosities and wonders Landscapes
Publisher: New York, The Christian Herald
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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e waters which encircled herhad been chosen for the mirror of her state, rather than theshelter of her nakedness; and that all which in nature waswild or merciless;—Time and Decay, as well as the wavesand tempests,—had been won to adorn her instead of todestroy, and might still spare, for ages to come, that beautywhich seemed to have fixed for its throne the sands of thehour-glass as well as of the sea. From the mouths of the Adige to those of the Piave therestretches, at a variable distance of from three to five milesfrom thfe actual shore, a bank of sand, divided into long is-lands by narrow channels of sea. The space between thisbank and the true shore consists of the sedimentary depositsfrom these and other rivers, a great plain of calcareous mud,covered, in the neighbourhood of Venice, by the sea at highwater, to the depth in most places of a foot or a foot and ahalf, and nearly everywhere exposed at low tide, but dividedby an intricate network of narrow and winding channels,
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THE LAGOONS OF VENICE 193 from which the sea never retires. In some places, accord-ing to the run of the currents, the land has risen intomarshy islets, consolidated, some by art, and some by time,into ground firm enough to be built upon, or fruitful enoughto be cultivated; in others, on the contrary, it has notreached the sea level; so that, at the average low water,shallow lakelets glitter among its irregularly exposed fieldsof seaweed. In the midst of the largest of these, increasedin importance by the confluence of several large river chan-nels towards one of the openings in the sea bank, the cityof Venice itself is built, on a crowded cluster of islands;the various plots of higher ground which appear to the northand south of this central cluster, have at different periodsbeen also thickly inhabited, and now bear, according to theirsize, the remains of cities, villages, or isolated convents andchurches, scattered among spaces of open. ground, partlywaste and encumbered by ruins, p

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