20 . •WYNNE: GEOLOGY 01' KUTCH. [PAET I. 



large rivers to the east, and also largely from the smaller streams of 

 Kuteh which are nearly all strongly impregnated with salt derived 

 from the rocks through which they pass. It does not form an import- 

 ant article of export as might have heen expected, and its taste is 

 usually rather bitter. Being partially distributed over the surface and 

 always occurring in the beds of such pools or flashes as remain 

 throughout the dry weather, it is evident that the presence of the salt is 

 the natural result of repeated evaporation of saline water left in hollows 

 by the retreating floods, its thickness of course indicating local absence of 

 the deposition of silt. 



Of the Runn Sir A. Bumes says : — " The whole tract may truly 

 be said to be a ' terra hospitibus ferox' ; fresh water is never to be had 

 anywhere but on islands, and there it is scarce ; it has no herbage, and 

 veo-etable life is only discernible in the shape of a stunted tamarisk 

 bush, which thrives by its suction of the rain water which falls near it- 

 The depression of the Runn below the surrounding country at once 

 suo-o-ests the possibility of its being a dried up lake or sea', and ' no- 

 where is that singular phenomenon, the mirage or sardb of the desert, 

 seen with greater advantage than in the Runn. The natives aptly 

 term it smoke ; the smallest shrubs at a distance assume the appearance 

 of forests, and on a nearer approach, sometimes that of ships in full 

 sail, at others that of breakers on a rock. In one instance I observed 

 a cluster of bushes, which looked like a pier with tall-masted vessels 

 lyino- close to it, and on approaching not a bank was near the shrubs to 

 account for the deception. From the Runn the hills of Kutch appear 

 more lofty, and to have merged into the clouds, their base being 

 obscured by vapour. The wild ass is the only inhabitant of this desolate 



reo-ion; they roam about in flocks Their size does not much exceed 



that of the common ass, but at a short distance they sometimes appear 

 as laro-e as elephants. WhUe the sun shines the whole surrounding space 

 «f Runn resembles a vast expanse of water, the appearance it commonly 

 ( ^0 ) 



