SUPERFICIAL DEPOSITS IN CUTCH. 381 



lower than about 120 feet above the Ran. They are only found inland at 

 spots which would become lakes if the water-level were restored to that 

 height. 

 From the preceding observations we may safely conclude that 

 (i) this laterite and its associates were formed in water ; 

 (ii) they are not the result of the decomposition of any rock in situ ; 

 (iii) they are detrital in origin ; 



(iv) they were formed at a time when the surface of the country was 

 not very different from what it is at the present day, but 

 when the water-level was 120 feet or more higher than now. 

 As to the source of the detritus, the materials of the sandstones, etc., might 

 easily be procured from the higher Jurassic rocks, and the iron of the laterite 

 itself could be found abundantly in the same beds or in the lower Jurassics — 

 though possibly not in a state suited for solution. But we cannot derive the 

 agates thence, and agates and iron probably came together. Agates are 

 abundant in certain of the lower flows of trap, and to such rocks we must 

 look for the source of the laterite. Now, as the " stratified traps" are flows 

 without pipes, and in the Jurassic area to the north of them there are several 

 pipes without flows, it has been natural to connect the one with the other ; 

 and if the southern traps were emitted from these pipes, there must have 

 been flows also to the north. Here, however, is a sharp anticlinal visibly 

 bringing in the higher Jurassics, so that the relics of such flows would now be 

 hidden beneath the Ean ; and it is from the degradation of these flows that 

 we may best seek the source of the laterites. This would account for their 

 occurrence on the north side, but not on the south side, of the inner Ran, 



In the absence of any organic remains, it is impossible to say whether they 

 are marine or lacustrine deposits. Their resemblance to the higher Jurassic 

 rocks which have associated plant-beds points to the latter, in which case we 

 may call in the aid of vegetation, as suggested by McGee and by MaUet ; but 

 as there are other deposits which have a similar distribution, and yet contain 

 remains of apparently marine shells, and as moreover a depression is easier 

 to imagine than a barrier, the former becomes at least equally probable. 

 (5) THE ALLUVIUM AND RAN, 

 The area marked as alluvium on Mr. Wynne's map is a very large one. It 

 occupies no less than 800 square miles. A large portion of it, however, lies 

 along the southern margin of the province, overlying fossiliferous Tertiary 

 rocks, and it is to this portion that I think Mr. Wynne's description must 

 especially apply when he says that " it is the result of the degradation of 

 the local rocks, consisting largely of materials derived from the Tertiary beds 

 frequently mingled with travelled fragments brought by rivers from the hills. 

 On this part of the alluvial area I have nothing to say, but of those parts 

 which are in relation to the Jurassic rocks the above is scarcely a suitable 

 description. In these I have found no evidence that the materials are specially 



