806 Report on subjects connected with Affghanistan. [No. 118. 



leave to object. The three vallies, cited by Dr. Lord, as having been 

 once large basins, do not, as they now exist, present that amount of 

 similarity of features, or, in other words, of affinity, which chiefly 

 authorises us to ascribe formations to similar agencies. And the only 

 one which, it appears to me, is naturally explicable by the hypothesis 

 of Dr. Lord, is that of Cabul, which presents a tolerable level surface 

 surrounded in every direction by hills. It may even now be said to 

 be a marsh. The valley of Jilalabad presents soil, such as may be 

 imagined to have been a deposit from tranquil water, only along the 

 course of the draining river, which, as Dr. Lord correctly mentions, 

 hugs the northern edge. 



Between Bala Bagh and Pigdulluch, which looking to the boundary 

 mountains, appears to me to be the western extremity, or part, rather 

 of the valley ; it is, if I may so express myself, blocked up by a low 

 series of sand hills and the table land of Gundamuck, from which there 

 is a descent again, over other sand hills, to Sooikhab. 



The space between the southern bank of the river and the Sufaid 

 Koh, or southern boundary, is occupied by an enormous glacis slope, 

 intersected by the northern draining torrents of the range, along and 

 about wHicb, here and there, small and generally well cultivated valleys 

 occur. 



If the great valley of Jilalabad, therefore, had ever been occupied 

 by a grand sheet of water, or if it ever presented in other words the 

 features that now characterise the valley of Cabul, great changes must 

 have subsequently occurred. 



The Khybur pass which was selected by Dr. Lord as the exit to 

 the " mighty rush of waters," did not appear to me to present any 

 greater evidence of unusual water action than did any of the other 

 characteristic passes of the country. Neither can I omit observing, 

 that the assumption of the necessity of more energetic means in 

 former times to enable nature to carry her measures into execution, 

 is not consonant with those modern doctrines which believe, unless 

 I am mistaken, that the causes now in operation in modifying the 

 surface of our planets, are fully competent. The valley of Pesha- 

 wur, as it now exists, is open freely towards the Indus. The 

 Greedur Galli is a small ravine, presenting fewer traces than usual 

 of the action of water, affording an easy cut across a spur of the 



