108 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



Gulf of Cutch, or even of Cambay. But, in a succession of 

 ages, it has either filled a region of little depth ; or, by a con- 

 stant erosion of the western banks, from longitude 7V>, the bed 

 of the river has worked westward to 67° 10", over a space of 

 nearly ten degrees. Perhaps allusion is made to the great 

 changes in the direction of the waters of North-Western India. 

 in the pretty mythological tale, anciently composed on the 

 table land of Ommurkuntur; and relating the amours and 

 jealous quarrel of the NerbuuMa with the Burraet, whose 

 sources are not far asunder; while the course of the first is 

 westward, that of the latter turns east to join the Jumna. 



In common with other great rivers of low latitudes, whose 

 course, unconfined by rocky chains, is obliquely to or from the 

 equator, the Indus obeys a law, probably in consequence of the 

 earth's daily rotation, which impels the current of the stream 

 constantly to abrade its western bank, and to forsake eastern 

 channels; so also, in Arctic regions, it causes floating ice ever 

 to drift westward, and to pack against all coasts facing the 

 morning sun. The same results still occur; the current, now 

 in contact with the Lukkee hills, finds them an ineffectual 

 barrier ; for, being gravelly, they are daily undermined, and, 

 at Sehwun, the face of the rock is incessantly carried away. 

 Even the road by which Lord Keene's army passed round its 

 foot was so entirely swept away by the next following freshets, 

 that, in a twelvemonth after, boats sailed in deep water over 

 the very spot. 



In the first ages of the present geological disposition of the 

 earth's strata, the whole space below the Punjaub may be 

 deemed to have been a shallow sea, which the enormous 

 deposits of the river constantly tended to fill up, and the surf 

 threw back in the form of sand and gravel, until the whole 

 space was filled, down to the edge of deep water, where the 

 currents generated by the monsoons first had power to act; 

 then the present delta, which began higher up, was finally 

 checked or reduced to very gradual additions. Nor is this 



