EARTH FISSURES AND SAND CRATERS. 47 



handy, or old lands of the rivev valley, except indeed at the junction 

 of the two where small portions of the latter in one or two places seem 

 to have fallen in on the support of the others being removed. In 

 every one of the many curves which the Soorma and Barak make below 

 Cachar, and for scores of miles, these fissures might be observed, 

 greatest near the river bank, but extending- for miles across those penin- 

 sula-like extensions of the river flats, which have been formed by the 

 river as it gradually worked further and further away from its original 

 course. 



In passing up to Silchar from Naraingunge, the effects of the earth- 

 quake became noticeable almost as soon as the steamer entered the defined 

 channel of the Soorma River ; there the high grassy banks, which formed 

 either side of the river, were in many places cracked in long continuous 

 and slightly open fissures, from which the lower portion had slipped 

 down, not far but sufficiently to produce a marked, though slight, scarp 

 in the bank. These cracks were seen along" every reach of the river, 

 notably along- such as ran north and south or approximately so, and 

 increased in intensity and number steadily as we progressed in the very 

 winding and ever changing course of the stream towards the east. 

 At Chattuck the steamer stopped, and there being no sufficient water 

 for steamers higher up than this, I took to small country-boats. This 

 enabled me to watch the effects more fully than I could otherwise 

 have done, by getting out every day and following up the banks as the 

 boat proceeded. Some of the long north and south reaches of the river 

 afforded most remarkable instances of these winding fissures and dislo- 

 cations of the banks, continuous cracks stretching away for more 

 than half a mile, often 2 feet or more in width, open for depths 

 of 8 feet, but they had all been partially closed by the falling in 

 of the sides. These in places produced steps or irregular terraces 

 along the sides of the banks, often marked by the disturbance 

 which affected the scattered trees which had been growing on the 

 sides and which had of course sunk with the earth in which their 

 roots were imbedded. About here I could fiud no other injury that 



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