615 



Letter to the Secretary of the Asiatic Society^ on the recent Cataclysm of 

 the InduSyfrom Dk. Falconer, Saharunpoor, July 6 ^ 1841. 



My dear Sir, — I have just perused in a letter from the frontier 

 a brief and hurried account of some of the particulars of a grand 

 Cataclysm of the Indus! certainly one of the most remarkable natural 

 catastrophes hitherto recorded as having occurred on the continent of 

 India, or any where else, in the deluge way. The details as yet are 

 very imperfectly given, but they are of so intensely interesting a 

 character, that I do not hesitate a moment to communicate them to 

 you, in the hopes that the Government may do its best towards col- 

 lecting authentic information, regarding the cause, extent, and effects 

 of this flood. We all know how little impressed uncivilized nations 

 are in the events of this kind : after the lapse of a few years, when the 

 immediate effects have gone by, they are generally remembered only as 

 imperfect traditions. The Government could with little trouble collect 

 most of the desired information, through the political officers on the 

 North- Western frontier ; but much will be lost in the authenticity and 

 fullness of the particulars if any considerable delay occurs in making 

 the inquiry. I am especially interested in the event, from being 

 well acquainted from personal observation with the remote and little 

 known tract in Thibet, which I believe to have been the great scene 

 of operations on the occasion ; and I fancy I am the only person now 

 in the country who has been there. Should the Government take the 

 inquiry in hand, I will be most happy to give my humble aid in point- 

 ing out the kind of information desired, the situations where inquiry 

 ought to be made, &c. and to work up the whole into a connected ac- 

 count, if desired. 



You are well aware, from the descriptions of Burnes and other 

 travellers, what a formidable river the Indus is near Attock. The depth 

 was ascertained by Lieut. Wood, from actual measurement, to exceed 

 many fathoms (I cannot at this moment quote the exact amount,) at the 

 ferry between Attock and Khyrabad, notwithstanding that the velocity of 

 the stream at this point is 9 knots an hour. It would appear that the 

 river had been observed during several months past to be most unusually 

 low, and to such an extent had the body of water lately diminished, 

 that the deep bed at Attock was converted into an easy ford / (I quote 



