In Troubadour-Land by Sabine Baring-Gould

Formation of the delta of the Rhone -- The diluvial wash -- The alluvium spread over this -- The three stages the river pursues -- The zone of erosion -- The zone of compensation -- The zone of deposit -- River mouths -- Estuaries and deltas -- The formation of bars -- Of lagoons -- The lagoons of the Gulf of Lyons -- The ancient position of Arles between the river and the lagoons -- Neglect of the lagoons in the Middle Ages -- They become morasses -- Attempt at remedy -- Embankments and drains -- A mistake made -- The Camargue now a desert -- Les Saintes Maries -- No evidence to support the legend -- Based on a misapprehension.

As I said when speaking of the Crau, the whole delta of the Rhone, which extended in the diluvial epoch from Cette to Fos, consists of a vast sloping plain of rolled stones from the Alps. What is now a great convexity thrust into the Mediterranean, perpetually gaining ground on the sea, was at the commencement of the present geologic epoch a great bay, and the waves of the Mediterranean broke against the cliffs of les Monts Garrigues, at Lodève, the heights of Nimes and Beaucaire, against the limestone crags of the Alpines, and swirled against that calcareous spur that now separates the lagoon of Berre from the desert of la Crau.