Geography of the Himalayah Mountains. 27 



An inundation of drifted sand in some places is apt to cover 

 any tract left for a time uncultivated, and the immense quan- 

 tities of saline matter contained in most of the wells, appear 

 like hoar frost upon the grounds where irrigation has been 

 going on- 

 Proceeding farther to the S. W. we have the SkeTcoroat 

 country, and the sandy desert of Bicancre, crossed by the 

 Cabul embassy, generally almost a flat, with the exception of 

 a few low rocky hills, the Indus being said to leave its last 

 hilly boundaries of rock salt at lvalabaug. 



The salt lake of Samhur is also a feature in the topography 

 of the country, which is twenty miles in length and one mile 

 and a half in breadth ; the evaporation of this, by the heats 

 of summer, leaves a solid mass of salt a tolerably pure muri- 

 ate of soda ; the immense quantities broken up and carried 

 away being annually supplied by fresh depositions, after the 

 rains of the following year. 



Farther to the south we have the maritime district of 

 Cutch, in which is that tract of country called the Runn, a 

 dead flat, hardly elevated above the level of the sea, said to 

 have a square surface of nearly 8000 miles, resembling an 

 arm of the sea, from which the water had seceded, covered 

 with saline incrustations and marine exuviae frequently, of 

 which during earthquakes a great portion has been occa- 

 sionally covered with water, as was said to have occurred in 

 1819. 



The low elevation of this whole tract of country above the 

 level of the sea, (the few observations I have of the barome- 

 ter, though I do not consider thern as perfectly satisfactory, 

 at Rewarrie, giving its height at from 800 to 900 feet,) its 

 deep alluvial soil, its generally sandy and saline character, 

 would give considerable interest to any attempts that might 

 be made to ascertain the strata of which it is composed, par- 

 ticularly the nature of the organic remains contained in the 

 strata of white friable limestone used for building, and said 

 to be found in many parts of the sandy desert. 



That the sea here extended considerably farther to the 

 northward may be considered perhaps as certain ; but in the 

 absence of precise and conclusive observations of the nature 

 above alluded to, we can hardly be permitted to speculate re- 

 specting the extent to which it may have reached. If the 



