EARTHQUAKE OP CENTRAL JAPAN, 1891. 297 



else that the direct contact of rocks of different ages has been the residt of the 

 faulting or slipping of one upon the other. Geologists are altogether silent 

 as to wli ether the formation of faults and chasms should he considered as 

 the direct cause, or only tlie outcome, of sidderranean convidsions. 



An unique, rhapsodic movement of land, and one which is often 

 cited in text-books on the authority of Sir Ch. Lyell, as evidence of 

 the actual upheaval of a lar<^-e tract of coimtry, is the formation of Illlah- 

 bund. The 'Mound of God' or Ullah-l)und suddenly made its appear- 

 ance at the time of a violent earthquake which occurred at Cutch, in 

 the delta of the Indus, on June 16, LS 19, when the fort of Sindree, on 

 the eastern arm of the river, sank down under the salt water of the 

 Runn. The Ullah-bund is not such a mound as is usually constructed 

 along a river, or thrown across a river-bed. It gives indeed the 

 deceptive appearance of an artificial dam, but only when we behold it 

 far away ; in reality it is the upraised edge of the land which imper- 

 ceptibly dips away inland. It has also been ascertained that this new- 

 raised country is upwards of fifty miles in length from east to west, 

 running parallel to tlie line of subsidence, while its breadth from north 

 to south is conjectured to be sixteen miles, its greatest ascertained height 

 above the original level of the delta being ten feet* Lyell saw in this 

 neivly created dam a trite upheaving of ground, while Suess considers it in 

 another light. According to him, we have here to deal not witli. the elevation 

 of land, or with the formation of foldings of strata near the siirface, hut with 

 the mere settling of the country in consequence of a pressing up of the ground- 

 tvater of a muddy alluvial plain. These eminent geologists seem, however, to 

 he in accord witli the view that the change in the relief in this special case 

 was the result, and not the cause of the terrible shocka which devastated the 

 Runn of Cutch, in 1819. The question at once arises in the mind, 

 " Was the tectonic disturbance the cause or eifect of an earth(|uake ? " 



* Lyell, Principles of Geoloçnj, 12ih edition, p. 16 L 



