"Alluvial soil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mentioned by Benjamin now exists, and it may be doubted whether the present building covers the tomb which was seen by the Hebrew traveller. We could find no ancient remains near it, as the Tigris is constantly changing its course, and was still eating away the bank of alluvial soil, upon the edge of which the building stood. It is highly probable that the tomb seen by Benjamin of Tudela had long before been carried away by the river." Layard's Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, vol. II, p. 214. See also an elaborate note of Dr. Benisch, p. 91 of ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... of working for these precious jems is a very simple one. The alluvial soil (the cascalhao) is dug up from the bed of the river, and removed to a convenient spot on the banks for working. The process is as follows:—a rancho is erected about a hundred feet long, and half that distance in width; down the middle of the area is conveyed a canal, covered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... garden of three acres seemed to roll like a river of green rapids to a little "run" or brook, which, even in the dry season, showed a trickling rill. But here he was struck by a singular circumstance. The garden rested in a rich, alluvial soil, and under the quickening Californian sky had developed far beyond the ability of its late cultivator to restrain or keep it in order. Everything had grown luxuriantly, and in monstrous size and profusion. The garden had even ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... of Egypt. In the East great rivers are the parents of civilized nations. A great river, which by its deposit forms a long valley and a broad delta of rich alluvial soil in the midst of deserts, was the parent, the nourisher, and the god of the oldest civilized nation of the earth. The Nile is Egypt; the Egyptians were those who lived below the cataracts and drank of the Nile. Above the cataracts they pushed their ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... that the French had taken on July 1st. The British had charged uphill against the strongest fortifications that the Germans could devise in that chalky subsoil so admirably suited for the purpose. Those before the French were not so strong and were in alluvial soil on the plain. Many of the German dugouts in front of Dompierre were in relatively as good condition as those at Fricourt, though not so numerous or so strong; which meant that the artillery of neither army had been able ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... natural that the product of the gold-washings should diminish with greater rapidity than that of the subterraneous working of the veins. The metals not being renewed in the clefts of the veins (by sublimation) now accumulate in alluvial soil by the course of the rivers where the table-lands are higher than the level of the surrounding running waters. But in rocks with metalliferous veins the miner does not at once know all he has to work. He may chance to ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... shoreline like to that of Green Bay in Lake Michigan, but not so large. Near its centre are a number of small islands. Twenty miles from its mouth stands the thriving town of Saginaw. From the northwesterly cape of Saginaw Bay to Flat Rock Point, the shore of Lake Huron presents a bank of alluvial soil, with a margin of sand along its border intersected with frequent masses of limestone rock, in some places ground to fragments by the surging ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... The inhabitants, Bushmen and Bakalahari, prey on the game and on the countless rodentia and small species of the feline race which subsist on these. In general, the soil is light-colored soft sand, nearly pure silica. The beds of the ancient rivers contain much alluvial soil; and as that is baked hard by the burning sun, rain-water stands in pools in some of them for several ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... of the river, the stream was full to the top of its banks, and in some places it overflowed them. The river had furrowed out a deep channel in the alluvial soil, and at low water, it had tolerably high bluffs on each side of it. It was almost as wide as the Father of Waters, where we had left it, at its lower part; but in a few hours the width ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... whether we could see the peaks of the Halling Jokeln, he commenced a soeter-song of life on the lofty fjeld—a song of snow, and free winds, and blue sky. By this time we had reached the other end of the lake, where, in the midst of a little valley of rich alluvial soil, covered with patches of barley and potatoes, stood the hamlet of Saebo. Here Peder procured a horse for my friend, and we entered the mouth of a sublime gorge which opened to the eastward—a mere split in the mighty ramparts of the Hardanger-Fjeld. Peder was continually shouting to the people ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... cataract, which are of trapp formation, disappeared at about eight miles below it, when the river immediately assumed another character. Its banks became of equal height, which had not before been the case, and averaged from fifteen to eighteen feet. They were composed entirely of alluvial soil, and were higher than the highest flood-marks. Its waters appeared to be turbid and deep, and its bed was a mixture of sand and clay. The casuarina, which had so often been admired by us, entirely disappeared and the channel in many places became so narrow as to ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... gardens of the world, is now covered with dried-up canals, filled a little below the surface with heaps of brick and broken vases, the remains and other vestiges of a once dense population. Its former rich alluvial soil, now almost calcined, produces at present scarcely anything except a few saline plants, mimosas etc.(233) The higher the civilization of a people, the less does it depend on the nature ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher |
