The Crocodile Pond of Mitggcrpccr 



39; 



at jSIuggerpeer is the crocodile, Crocodilus 

 palustris. The gavial (Gaviakis Gangeticus), 

 or Indian aUigator, does not occur there, but 

 abounds in all the great rivers of northern 

 India, and in the Indus is found from its delta 

 northwards to Attock. Captain Caudey, in 

 a memoir published in the "Asiatic Re- 

 searches," xix., 25 (1836), "On the Fossil 

 Crocodiles of the Sewalik Hills,"^" says— 



"Of the crocodile of these strata I have attempted 

 in the preceding section to shew, as far as measure- 

 ments and my limited means point out, that the main 

 difference between the fossil and the existing animal of 

 the present rivers is in the breadth ; a difiference that 

 might tend to an opinion of its being allied to the 

 Cayman, did not other more distinct characters separate 

 it at once from that sub-genus. In the Gharial (gavial) 

 now under review, I am tenable to recognise any differ- 

 ence from the living animal ; and there are certain 

 peculiarities about the external surface of the skull of 

 the existing Gharial (gavial) in slight indentations and 

 nigosities, which are singidarly coincident with those 

 of the fossil." 



If this is the case with fossil remains, so old 

 as the Sewalik beds themselves, it can excite 

 no surprise that, at any rate, the crocodile of 

 a period long subsequent to the consolidation 

 and upheaval of these very beds should be 

 so. 



This is not the only instance of such an oc- 

 currence. According to M. Duveyrier, exactly 

 the same thing has happened in the desert of 

 Sahara. He tells us ("Explorations du 

 Sahara," p. 29 and 232), that the crocodile 

 still lives on the north side of the Saharan 

 desert, particularly in the litde lakes of 

 ?^Iihero, which must have once formed part 

 of the great Saharan sea. 



The idea that a breed of the crocodiles 

 could, or would, have been brought over the 

 desert, and deposited in the oases by natives, 

 seems to be wholly without foundation. It 

 involves an anticipation of and preparation 

 for the future greatly beyond the intelligence 

 or practice of the present natives. The oc- 

 currence of a fresh water dolphin (Platanista 

 Inda) in the Indus is another fact which 

 seems to point to a change from a marine 

 bay to a fresh water lake; for the dolphin is a 



""■ See Reprint in Palxontological Memoirs of Dr 

 Hugh Falconer, vol. i., p. 351. Hardwire, 1868. 



marine animal, although capable of living for 

 a time in fresh water. A slow change from 

 salt to fresh might have kept the species 

 alive until it, as well as the medium in which 

 it lived, were changed. The only other 

 fresh water dolphins (one in the Ganges and 

 one in the Amazons) doubtless owe their 

 origin to similar machiner)'. 



The salt ranges of the Punjaub have no re- 

 lation to this sequence of events. Any 

 deposits of salt that might have been left, 

 as in other cases by the drying up of a sea, 

 could not occur here ; for, by our hypothesis, 

 before it was dried up, the sea had become 

 fresh water, of course from the flow of fresh 

 water into it from the snowy range of the 

 Himmalayahs. No salt lakes or incrusta- 

 tions of salt or soda, as in the deserts 

 in North-west America or the Sahara, occur 

 in the sandy wastes of the Punjaub. The 

 salt in the salt ranges is derived, not from 

 surface deposits at all, but from beds in 

 strata, at least as old as the new red sand- 

 stone, if not referable to the still older period 

 — the carboniferous epoch. 



Mr Adams' description of this remarkable 

 district is as follows : — 



"The salt range extends from the Himmalayahs 

 across the Punjaub in about a straight line to tlie 

 Suliman mountains on their west flank, and is com- 

 posed of low hills, intersected by narrow ravines or 

 prominent ridges, for the most part devoid of vegeta- 

 tion. Limestones, saliferous red and gi-ey sandstones, 

 would appear to fonn the chief geological forma- 

 tions, \\hich, according to Professor Fleming, belong 

 to the carboniferous period (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, 

 1853 and 1862 ; also, Journ. As. Soc, Beng., 1853, 

 ^;c. ). The plateaux, excepting where extensive denuda- 

 tion has taken place, are covered with rounded pebbles, 

 mostly formed from the breaking up of the limestone 

 l^eds. Salt is found in veins in various situations, 

 more especially among the sandstone and marl beds 

 in the neighbourhood of Kuller Kahar, where there 

 are extensive salt mines. The barren and sunburnt 

 appearance of these mountains strikes the traveller; 

 indeed, it is chiefly on that account that they become 

 a safe retreat to the wild sheep, for, except in the cul- 

 tivated districts, these dreary and desolate wastes are 

 seldom disturbed by man."- — (P. 138.) 



"The ravines in the district of Jubba have a pecu- 

 liar appearance. Viewed from a height they present 

 a series of \\'orn and angidar-shaped hillocks, inter- 

 sected by naiTOw defiles, by no means inviting to the 

 traveller, for not a blade of grass is visible, and the 



