96 W. T. Blanford — On the Physical Geography [No. 2, 



The probability is that Kachh was originally an island*, and the Ran 

 a vast inlet of the sea, which gradually became shallow, just as other inlets 

 on the coast of India, e. g. Bombay harbour, are gradually being filled up 

 by silt deposited from rivers, aided, in the case of the Ran, by blown sand 

 and also by the gradual elevation of the whole area, and (which is the most 

 important point in the present discussion) that this inlet extended into the 

 region now forming Eastern Sind to a distance of at least 100 miles and 

 probably much further. I have no precise information as to the distance 

 to which the salt ' dhandhs' extend to the northward, but they are certainly 

 found in the Khairpiir territory, and I find one marked on the map in Bohri, 

 whilst there is a tract of country between Jaysalmir and Bohri in which 

 wells of freshwater are excessively scarce and local. West of Umarkot the 

 wells are brackish for about 35 miles ; further east than this rock is found 

 in the wells and the water is sweet. The spot where the change takes place 

 may mark the limit of the former inlet. 



§ 9. The Luni Basin. — We thus have proof that an arm of the sea 

 ran for a considerable distance up the Indus valley in very late geological 

 times, although it is not yet manifest how far it extended, and the question 

 arises whether there is any reason for inferring the former existence of the 

 sea in any other part of the desert area. I have already mentioned a second 

 locality which I had an opportunity of examining, and where salt is found 

 in large quantities. This is near a town called Panchbhadra, a short dis- 

 tance north of the Luni river and about 45 miles south-west of Jodhpur. 

 Here salt is largely manufactured in a slightly depressed tract of country, 

 which may formerly have been the bed of a salt lake, but is now surrounded 

 and partly covered by drift sand. Salt must abound thimighout the lower 

 course of the Luni, for the water of the stream in the dry season is very 

 strongly impregnated. It is not merely brackish, it is decidedly salt. 

 The fall of the river is said to be very small, but of this I had no means of 

 judging personally. If it be the fact, the river's course below Panchbhadra 

 may very possibly have been an arm of the sea in recent times. 



It is impossible to avoid speculating on the origin of the salt in the 

 Sambhar lake being also connected with the former extension of the sea. 



§ 10. Want of evidence of Marine Denudation elsewhere in the 

 Desert. — Apart from the evidence afforded by the abundance of salt and the 

 remarkable existence of a marine shell in the salt ' dhandhs' of the Thar, I 

 searched in vain for evidence of recent marine action in the desert. The 

 general flatness of the area may be due to marine denudation, but it may also 

 be due to the extreme flatness of the rocks and the absence of disturbance. 



* The distribution of the Tertiary rocks in Kachh is quite consistent "with the 

 view that this tract formed an island in Eocene times, when we know that the Indus 

 valley, Baluchistan, and Southern Persia were beneath the sea. 



