258 PROCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETX. [April 10, 



have really made any thing out of these. It is a first attempt, you 

 know, on my part, and has necessarily heen a hurried one ; but, 

 whether successful or not, you will, I know, appreciate the attempt. 



" What accounts you may have had of the late earthquake I do not 

 know ; most of the telegraphic accounts we had here were greatly 

 exaggerated, especially in regard to the Assuring and opening of the 

 earth in many places, and the outburst of what they were pleased to 

 call volcanic mud-craters, &c. 



" It would be difficult to exaggerate the facts as to the fissTiring of 

 the ground in places ; hiit all this is only a secondary result. The 

 facts are these. The whole country is a great and widely extended 

 alluvial flat, through which the rivers have cut deep channels, the 

 banks being often 50 feet high, and commonly 30. As is usual in 

 such cases, they wind about very much, and have filled and re-filled 

 in the portions within these curvings. Cachar itself is just at the 

 base of a long peninsula of this kind, just in the eye of this prominent 

 bend of the river, while the flat peninsula is all of more recent for- 

 mation (fig. 1). The distinction is perfectly known to the natives, who 



Pig. 1. — Diagram of changed River-course at Cachar. 



a. The town of Cachar or Silchar. 



call the permanent portion Kandy lands, and the other more recently 

 filled in of the old river-channels, Bhurti lands ; hhurti is, HteraUy, 

 ' filled in.' Now for scores of miles together the whole of this hhurti 

 land is composed of successive layers of stiff clay and mere sandy 

 deposits some 25 to 30 feet thick, which, throughout, rest upon a 

 bed some 3, 5 or 6 feet thick, of bluish silt or sandy ooze ; this 

 is very porous, and becomes highly charged with water, assuming, 

 when thus charged, a dark bluish or nearly blackish colour. This 

 bed is (throughout) at, or close to the present level of the water in the 

 dry season, which is some 30 feet below its level in the rains and 

 freshes ; and in this way this porous bed has remained charged with 



