SUPERFICIAL DEPOSITS IN CUTCH. 383 



he states that these " shells " are casts and may be " very new Tertiary." 

 They are therefore no evidence that before the sea left in comparatively 

 recent times, it stood 20 feet higher than the present surface of the 

 Ean. 



Standing by the edge of the Great Ran, on the northern shore of Patcham, 

 Kharir, or Bela, one might fancy oneself looking over flats which have just 

 been deserted by the tide. Save for the absence of the scraps of sea-wrack 

 and the greater firmness of the mud, there is little to distinguish the 

 appearance from that which might be seen along the coast of Britanny and 

 Normandy between St. Malo and Mont St. Michel. Here, too, are the clean 

 swept foreshore, the low cliffs on its landward margin, i the broken tumbled 

 masses on the slopes, and the frowning scarps above — all recalling the aspect, 

 though wilder in type, of the Undercliff of the Isle of Wight, where the lie 

 of the strata also is the same as it is here. But, since the formation of the 

 laterites and other minor deposits, there is no evidence that the sea has stood 

 at a higher level than when it washed the low cliifs that now edge the Ran, 



Why then has the sea departed, as it were yesterday, and left its bed to be 

 dried up by the sun ? Two explanations are possible : either the sea has 

 been dammed out of the area by deposits on its surface, or the land has 

 relatively risen. If the former were the solo explanation, the level of the 

 borders of the Rm would still be uniform. But, according to the figures on 

 the Trigonometrical Survey maps, it would require a depression of about 30 

 feet to bring the sea-water to the edge of the inner Ran along the northern 

 shores of the mainland, whereas on the edge of the eastern side of Kharir it 

 would require no more than 5 or 6 feet. The land therefore must have risen 

 unequally, which is not an improbable counterpoise to the depression that has 

 taken place over the Sindree basin. 



But that deposits also have taken place and that the peculiarities of the 

 Ran results from these will, I think, appear probable from what follows: — 

 In the first place the Ran proper is extraordinarily level ; this may be seen 

 from the figures on the Trigonometrical Survey map, where, over wide areas, 

 we find 1, 3, 5, 4, 8, 11, 12 feet, showing a difi'erence of very few feet, and I 

 have myself ridden over 10 miles of it in the rainy season with water on it 

 almost all the way of never greater depth than the knees of the coolies. 

 Yet, beneath the lofty scarps of Patcham and Kharir with their broken 

 undercliff, the shores are swept quite clean, and the debris must have been 

 carried away when these shores were in the making, and when the small 

 cliffs, sometimes 30 feet in height, were being worn away. Now, in such a 

 shallow sea as the Kan would be if the water returned no waves or currents 



1 I do not specially qaote in this connection the curiously worn cliff figured by Mr. 

 Wynne a? " ? sea-cliff," because it happens to be composed of irregularly hardened sandstone 

 which even inland weathers into similar fantastic shapes, as near Mundhan. 



