102 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [Ch. XXVIII 



my friend. Captain Grant, F.G.S., of the Bombay Engineers 

 had the kindness to send at my request a native surveyor to 

 make a plan of Sindree and UUah Bund, in March, 1838. 

 From his description it appears that, at that season, the 

 driest of the whole year, he found the channel traversing the 

 Bund to be 100 yards wide, without water, and encrusted 

 with salt. He was told that it has now only 4 or 5 feet of 

 water in it after rains. The sides or banks were nearly 

 perpendicular, and 9 feet 

 diminished both in area and d.epth, and j)art near the fort 



in height. 



The lagoon has 



Eif^. 107. mm^m 



View of the Eort of Sindree, from the west, in March, 1838. 



was dry land. The annexed drawing, made by Captain 

 Grant from the surveyor's plan, shows the appearance of the 

 fort in the midst of the lake, as seen in 1838 from the Avest 



om 



sketch (see fig. 106), was taken in 1808, before the earth- 

 quake. 



The Eunn of Cutcli is a flat region of a very peculiar 

 character, and no less than 7,000 square miles in area: a 

 greater superficial extent than Yorkshire, or about one- 

 fourth the area of Ireland. It is not a desert of moving 

 sand, nor a marsh, but evidently the dried-up bed of an 

 inland sea, which for a great part of every year has a hard and 

 dry bottom without vegetation or only supporting here and 

 there a few tamarisks. But durino- the monsoons, when the 

 sea runs high, the salt-water driven np from the Gnlf of 

 Cutch and the creeks at Luckpnt overflows a large part of the 

 Runn, especially after rains, when the soaked ground permits 



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