Calcutta Delta. 545 



consequent velocity of those former rivers exceeded that of the Bra- 

 maputra and others, so would their power of transport also.* 



But it appears never to have entered into the calculation, that the 

 fall of the present rivers may have been materially altered by the very 

 debris with which they were charged, and from which have gradually 

 risen to light the vast tracts of level lands our continent now possesses. 

 Yet this is a most important fact, and one that must have exercised 

 great influence on the rapidity, and consequently on the power, of trans- 

 port of the rivers themselves; thus although at present they cannot 

 carry down gravel to a greater distance tban thirty miles, time may 

 have been, when their force and powers could have formed a conglome- 

 rate at many miles farther down. I do not assert, that they have done 

 so, or that the conglomerate under consideration has been so formed, 

 but I point simply to the possibilities, that may once have existed. 



It appears that Lieut. Smith is disposed to class the conglomerate 

 with the diluvial detritus of the Sub-Himalayan range, and other parts 

 of India. It may be asked, however, whether it is supposed to have 

 been of simultaneous deposition with the now inclined strata of the 

 Sub-Himalaya, and forms a continuation of them : or whether it may 

 not rather be composed of fragments of the primary rocks, (to tbe 

 uprise of which the others owe their inclination), mixed with the sands 

 and fossils derived from the diluvial beds themselves, and which frag- 

 ments have been carried down by the rivers, which then first commenc- 

 ed tbeir courses to the sea, when tbe Himalaya emerged from beneath 

 it to form dry land, and which period, as I have elsewhere shewn from 

 geological reasoning, was the subsidence of the Mosaic deluge. f If the 

 former hypothesis be correct, it would follow that the fossiliferous 

 conglomerate should be found to extend in a substratum from Fort 

 William to the Himalaya, and that it is perhaps connected with the 

 Nerbudda and Jumna fossil sites. In this case it should be allowed, 

 according to geological reasoning in similar cases, that the strata, con- 

 taining a greater proportion of the exuvia of animals peculiar to 

 dry land, were formed on dry land, and consequently a large portion of 

 India would be shewn to have constituted the antideluvian earth, 



* Captain Hutton appears to overlook here one of the clearest results to be deduced from 

 the disposition and nature of the strata beneath Fort William, namely, that of a gradually- 

 sinking of the surface ; for in no other way can we account for the drift wood, carbonaceous 

 and peat beds at various depths, from 10 to 395 feet, than that they had been deposited on the 

 surface, and afterwards carried down below the level of the sea to their present position, and 

 buried beneath newer deposits. — Ed. 



t See Journal of the Asiatic Society, No. Ill, p. 228—229. 



3 Y 



