FORMATION OF THE INDIAN PLAINS. 473 



the foot of the higher Himalayas; but the remains 

 found in the beds overlying these tertiary strata, and 

 nearer to but still beneath the surface of the plain, 

 are terrestrial and not marine. Also we venture to 

 assert, that the flat surface of the plains might have 

 been produced under fresh water, as well as under 

 the sea. 



The question then arises, did these great plains once 

 form the bed of a gigantic lake? It is obvious that 

 such a lake need not necessarily have been very deep 

 to form this plain, but merely that its surface should 

 have been submerged beneath the water. Now, " the 

 great plain of Northern India stretches with an almost 

 unbroken surface along the foot of the Himalayas, 

 from the Upper Indus to the head of the Delta of the 

 Ganges. Its area is about 500,000 square miles. It 

 nowhere rises to more than 1000 feet above sea-level, 

 and to the unassisted eye appears a perfectly dead 

 flat." * 



All those who have travelled or resided in India 

 will doubtless retain a very vivid recollection of the 

 trying heat and dreary monotony of these vast and 

 interminable plains; where day after day, and week 

 after week, the wayfarer used to toil painfully along 

 before the days of railways; and where each day's 

 journey was but a repetition of that of the previous 

 day. Since then, the railways have reduced the tedium 

 of this great journey to a minimum; and yet still, as 

 we know, for days we can go ahead on the railways, 

 and see plains, and nothing but plains, of this apparently 

 dead level character. We however found that very 

 little of the ground was really level ; nevertheless the 



* Encyclop. Brit., Qth edit., Vol. xi., p. 823. 



