In some places, according to the run
of the currents, the land has risen into marshy islets, consolidated,
some by art, and some by time, into ground firm enough to be built
upon, or fruitful enough to be cultivated: in others, on the contrary,
it has not reached the sea level; so that, at the average low water,
shallow lakelets glitter among its irregularly exposed fields of
seaweed. In the midst of the largest of these, increased in importance
by the confluence of several large river channels towards one of the
openings in the sea bank, the city of Venice itself is built, on a
crowded cluster of islands; the various plots of higher ground which
appear to the north and south of this central cluster, have at
different periods been also thickly inhabited, and now bear, according
to their size, the remains of cities, villages, or isolated convents
and churches, scattered among spaces of open ground, partly waste and
encumbered by ruins, partly under cultivation for the supply of the
metropolis.
The average rise and fall of the tide is about three feet (varying
considerably with the seasons); but this fall, on so flat a shore, is
enough to cause continual movement in the waters, and in the main
canals to produce a reflux which frequently runs like a mill stream.
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