346 PROCEEDINGS OF TIIE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Apr. 1, 



course of the Ganges than that it now occupies. It has now been 

 deflected so far westward that it joins the old bed of the Gunduck, 

 and, in our careless nomenclature, actually gives its name to the 

 lower part of that stream, and in Rennell's maps is so called at its 

 junction with the Ganges opposite Monghyr. 



The next river to feel the effect of these changes was the Gun- 

 duck. In this instance the evidence is as clear as could be desired. 

 A river marked on our maps as the Little Gunduck — sometimes, 

 but very improperly, as just mentioned, called the Bogmutty, from 

 the name of its principal tributary — joins the Ganges opposite Mon- 

 ghyr; and there can be little or no doubt that it was what it is 

 styled in the maps of the recent Survey, the Boor Gunduck, or old bed 

 of that river. 



Judging from the height of its banks and that of the land in its 

 neighbourhood, and the extreme sinuosity of its course, this old 

 river must long ago have ceased to flow with any vigour. A date 

 might possibly be found for the time when this was the principal 

 river; but, with the information at present available, all we can 

 say is that it was so at a time when the country was sufficiently 

 inhabited for the nomenclature of the rivers to be fixed. 



At the earliest period to which anything like authentic history 

 reaches, this river seems to have been distant from its present 

 channel about twenty-two miles to the north of its present mouth, 

 near Bakhra, or the site of the famous city of Yaisali, celebrated as 

 the place where the second convocation of the Buddhists was held, 

 300 years before Christ, and to have joined the Ganges some thirty- 

 three miles further down than at present. It is now so nearly per- 

 pendicular, that it will probably be a long time before it travels 

 much farther westward. 



Proceeding upwards, the next river of any importance we meet is 

 the Soane. Here, fortunately, we have more precise information. 

 Arrian, Strabo, and Pliny — or rather Megasthenes — tell us that 

 Palibothra, the great capital of this country, was situated at the 

 junction of the Erranaboas and the Ganges. Recent antiquarian 

 discoveries have left no doubt that Patna — " Palibothra" — is 

 the city designated, and that the Hyranya Bahu — the Golden- 

 armed, or, popularly, the Sona, or Golden — is the river; and, 

 fortunately, an old branch of the Soane can still be traced, from 

 a spot about twelve miles up the stream to near the west end 

 of the present city. In Rennell's time the Soane joined the Ganges 

 at Moneah, twenty- two miles further west, by a single mouth. 

 Since his survey it has formed a delta, and the upper mouth is 

 the more important; so that, practically, it may be said to have 

 receded four miles since that time. If in eighty years it has pro- 

 gressed so much, in 2000 it ought to have gone back 110 miles, 

 instead of only twenty -five or twenty-six; the probability con- 

 sequently is, that the delta was not then sufficiently extended or 

 raised to affect rivers so far up the stream ; indeed, it may have been 

 1000 or more years after the fact was notified to us that the eleva- 

 tion of the delta was first felt so high up as Patna ; and, if so, wc 



