1873.] DREW DPPER-INDUS BA.SIN. 4G3 



From Upshi, at the lower end of the Rong, to Tagna or Stakna. the 

 river flows between banks of 100 or 200 feet height, which are 

 composed for the most part of fan-stuff ; that is to say, the river has 

 cut through the fans of the side streams. "With this fan-stuff, 

 however, the more rounded alluvium of the river itself is seen to be 

 interstratified. JBelow Tagna a change takes place. The fall of the 

 river-bed is less ; there is no cliff of alluvium bounding it. We get 

 on to a flat of clay soil that, with a width increasing sometimes to a 

 mile or more, extends to a length of 12 miles along the course of 

 the river, as far as the village of Pitak, near Leh. This is a 

 repetition, so to say, of the alluvial plain in the high part of the 

 Indus where we began our description, 100 miles up ; and there is 

 not, as far as 1 know, another such case till we get to Skardu, 

 which is 150 miles down the valley. Over this flat the waters of 

 the river are brought in channels for irrigation without difficulty, as 

 its ordinary level is but a few feet below that of the flat. Here, as 

 in the earlier ease, I am disposed to think that the low slope of the 

 river-bed and of the alluvium which corresponds was made by a 

 checking of the waters at a spot not far below, which made a lake, 

 and caused a rearrangement of the river-bed slope for some 

 distance back, and brought about the deposit of more than usually 

 fine alluvial matter — the present surface, however, being alluvial, 

 not lacustrine. 



Below this the Indus takes to a deep rocky ravine, which is im- 

 passable ; the road leaves its course for a space. Here are some 

 interesting phenomena which will be treated of under the head of 

 lake-deposits. 



Beyond this, again, we meet, at various spots, with alluvial 

 deposits quite similar to those so often described. Just below 

 Khalsi are seen two terraces of pebbly alluvium — one, on which the 

 road goes, about 100 feet above the river, the other some 300 feet 

 higher still. Twenty miles lower down, at Achinathang, there is a 

 definite terrace-level 250 feet above the river. The cliff-section 

 shows that for all that height down to the water-level it is composed 

 of pebble beds exactly parallel to the surface of the water — that is to 

 say, inclining slightly down the valley. Higher beds there are in 

 this neighbourhood ; but these will be classed under a different head. 



I have not many more definite notes of the occurrence of such 

 alluvium as we have been confining our attention to in the valley 

 proper of the Indus. There remain to be described of this class of 

 deposit some instances to be met with in the tributaries that come 

 in from the south-west side, including the remarkable plains of 

 Kargil, Dras, and Deosai. 



gular debris, and partly of strata of pebble-beds, sand, and clay, some of it 

 laminated. 



While suggesting that these last may be connected with the lacustrine deposits 

 (though the moundy form in which they are now left presents some difficulties), 

 I must acknowledge myself unable to account for the occurrence of the up- 

 heaved or sloping beds first described, and must be content to leave them for 

 further observation or for the inferences of others. 



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