6
disasters ) forms no pile of sediment worth mentioning, as in other regions ) but keeps sliding away ceaselessly and disappearing in the deep." Homer, in The
Iliad, described the battle of Achilles with the river
god Scamander. The river is described as in full
flood> and the power of erosion and transportation is
graphically conveyed:
"He fllled all his channels with foaming cataracts, and
roaring like a bull he flung up on dry land the innumerable
bodies of Achilles' victims that had choked him, protecting
the survivors by hiding them in the deep and ample pools
that beautified his course.
The river god sweeps Achilles off his feet, an action
likened to a gardener digging an irrigation channeL
Mattock in hand, he clears obstructions from the trench;
the water starts flowing; it sweeps the pebbles out of the
way; and in a moment it runs singing down the slope and
has outstripped its guide."
Later> Scamander calls to Simo'is:
"Dear brother, let us unite to overpower this man ... flll
your channels with water from the springs, replenish all
your mountain streams, raise a great surge and send it
down, seething with logs and boulders . ... [the arm:our of
Achilles J shall lie deep in the slime beneath my flood; and
as for him, I'll roll him in the sand and pile up shingle high
above him." (Rieu 1953)
·
The tendency for rivers to overflow and form
thick blankets of floodplain deposits has been
viewed with mixed feelings by those living in the
valley of the Nile since prehistoric times. One of the
first to reach correct conclusions about this process
was the Greek philosopher Herodotus (born 484
B.C.) who concluded that "Egypt is the gift of the
river". Aristotle (384- 322 B.C.) was also aware of the
depositional activity of the Nile and, in addition, he
noted the rapid silting up of navigable river channels
around the shores of the Black Sea and on the
Bosphorous. These observations were an improvement on that of Thales ofMiletus ( 63 6- 546 B.C.) who
thought the presence of new deltaic deposits projecting into the sea showed that water could change into
earth. The Meander River in Turkey was mentioned
by both Herodotus and Strabo, and its name became
used as a general term for highly sinuous rivers
(Russell 1954).
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) observed the
gravel deposits of the River Arno and wrote in his
notebooks "which deposits are still to be seen welded
together and forming one concrete mass of various
kinds of stones from different localities." Elsewhere
the river deposited mud containing shells, which da
Vinci used as evidence to dispute the origin of fossils
as products of the Flood.
Historical Background
Agricola, in his great treatise De re metallica,
published in 1556, made some observations on
placer gold deposits. He recognized that "gold is not
generated in the rivers and streams ... but is torn
away from the veins and stringers and settled in the
sands of torrents and water courses ... '' He commented on a prevailing theory of his time concerning
the action of the sun in drawing out the metallic
material, which led to the idea that the orientation of
veins or gold-bearing streams was critical in their
economic exploitation:
" ... a river. , they say, or a stream, is most productive of fine
and coarse grains of gold when it comes from the east and
flows to the west, and when it washes against the foot of
mountains which are situated in the north, and when it has
a level plain toward the south or west." (Hoover and
Hoover 1950, p. 75).
Agricola devoted many pages to the extraction of
gold and tin from placers, and provided us with a
picture of an early fluvial sedimentologist at work
with his gravels (Fig. 2.1).
The German physician and geographer Bernhard
Varenius (1622-1750) published the first text on
physical geography in 1734. He wrote "Of the
Changes on the Terraqueous Globe, viz. of Water
into Land or Land into Water", and listed a series of
"propositions" to explain such changes. Part of Proposition V states, regarding rivers:
"If their water bring down a great deal of Earth, Sand and
Gravel out of the high Places, and leave it upon the low, in
process of Time these will become as high as the other,
from whence the Water flows: or when they leave this Filth
in a certain Place on one side of the Channel, it hems in and
raises part of the Channel which becomes dry Land.''
Robert Hooke (1635- 1703), the English physicist
and mathematician, wrote about earthquakes
changing the level of strata> and "that water counteracts these .effects'' by processes of er O sion and sedimentation:
"We have multitudes of in' stances of the wasting of the tops
of Hills, and of.the filling or increasing the Plains or lower
Grounds, of Rivers continually carrying along with them
great quantities of Sand, Mud, or other Substances from
higher to lower places ... Egypt as lying very low and yearly
overflow'd, is inlarg'd by the sediments of the Nile, especially towards that part where the Nile falls into the Mediterranean. The Gulph of Venice is almost choked with the
sand of the Po. The Mouth of the Thames is grown very
shallow by the continual supply of Sand brought down
with the Stream."
Nikolaus Stene (1638- 1687) recognized the use of
certain fossils as environmental indicators, proposing, for example, that the presence of a terrestrial
disasters ) forms no pile of sediment worth mentioning, as in other regions ) but keeps sliding away ceaselessly and disappearing in the deep." Homer, in The
Iliad, described the battle of Achilles with the river
god Scamander. The river is described as in full
flood> and the power of erosion and transportation is
graphically conveyed:
"He fllled all his channels with foaming cataracts, and
roaring like a bull he flung up on dry land the innumerable
bodies of Achilles' victims that had choked him, protecting
the survivors by hiding them in the deep and ample pools
that beautified his course.
The river god sweeps Achilles off his feet, an action
likened to a gardener digging an irrigation channeL
Mattock in hand, he clears obstructions from the trench;
the water starts flowing; it sweeps the pebbles out of the
way; and in a moment it runs singing down the slope and
has outstripped its guide."
Later> Scamander calls to Simo'is:
"Dear brother, let us unite to overpower this man ... flll
your channels with water from the springs, replenish all
your mountain streams, raise a great surge and send it
down, seething with logs and boulders . ... [the arm:our of
Achilles J shall lie deep in the slime beneath my flood; and
as for him, I'll roll him in the sand and pile up shingle high
above him." (Rieu 1953)
·
The tendency for rivers to overflow and form
thick blankets of floodplain deposits has been
viewed with mixed feelings by those living in the
valley of the Nile since prehistoric times. One of the
first to reach correct conclusions about this process
was the Greek philosopher Herodotus (born 484
B.C.) who concluded that "Egypt is the gift of the
river". Aristotle (384- 322 B.C.) was also aware of the
depositional activity of the Nile and, in addition, he
noted the rapid silting up of navigable river channels
around the shores of the Black Sea and on the
Bosphorous. These observations were an improvement on that of Thales ofMiletus ( 63 6- 546 B.C.) who
thought the presence of new deltaic deposits projecting into the sea showed that water could change into
earth. The Meander River in Turkey was mentioned
by both Herodotus and Strabo, and its name became
used as a general term for highly sinuous rivers
(Russell 1954).
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) observed the
gravel deposits of the River Arno and wrote in his
notebooks "which deposits are still to be seen welded
together and forming one concrete mass of various
kinds of stones from different localities." Elsewhere
the river deposited mud containing shells, which da
Vinci used as evidence to dispute the origin of fossils
as products of the Flood.
Historical Background
Agricola, in his great treatise De re metallica,
published in 1556, made some observations on
placer gold deposits. He recognized that "gold is not
generated in the rivers and streams ... but is torn
away from the veins and stringers and settled in the
sands of torrents and water courses ... '' He commented on a prevailing theory of his time concerning
the action of the sun in drawing out the metallic
material, which led to the idea that the orientation of
veins or gold-bearing streams was critical in their
economic exploitation:
" ... a river. , they say, or a stream, is most productive of fine
and coarse grains of gold when it comes from the east and
flows to the west, and when it washes against the foot of
mountains which are situated in the north, and when it has
a level plain toward the south or west." (Hoover and
Hoover 1950, p. 75).
Agricola devoted many pages to the extraction of
gold and tin from placers, and provided us with a
picture of an early fluvial sedimentologist at work
with his gravels (Fig. 2.1).
The German physician and geographer Bernhard
Varenius (1622-1750) published the first text on
physical geography in 1734. He wrote "Of the
Changes on the Terraqueous Globe, viz. of Water
into Land or Land into Water", and listed a series of
"propositions" to explain such changes. Part of Proposition V states, regarding rivers:
"If their water bring down a great deal of Earth, Sand and
Gravel out of the high Places, and leave it upon the low, in
process of Time these will become as high as the other,
from whence the Water flows: or when they leave this Filth
in a certain Place on one side of the Channel, it hems in and
raises part of the Channel which becomes dry Land.''
Robert Hooke (1635- 1703), the English physicist
and mathematician, wrote about earthquakes
changing the level of strata> and "that water counteracts these .effects'' by processes of er O sion and sedimentation:
"We have multitudes of in' stances of the wasting of the tops
of Hills, and of.the filling or increasing the Plains or lower
Grounds, of Rivers continually carrying along with them
great quantities of Sand, Mud, or other Substances from
higher to lower places ... Egypt as lying very low and yearly
overflow'd, is inlarg'd by the sediments of the Nile, especially towards that part where the Nile falls into the Mediterranean. The Gulph of Venice is almost choked with the
sand of the Po. The Mouth of the Thames is grown very
shallow by the continual supply of Sand brought down
with the Stream."
Nikolaus Stene (1638- 1687) recognized the use of
certain fossils as environmental indicators, proposing, for example, that the presence of a terrestrial