522 Account of the Koh-i-Damdn, [June, 



inclusive are at right angles with the direction of the stream. In other 

 words the genera lline of the former is north and south, of the latter 

 east and west. It is of the latter and the country they include that I 

 would at present more particularly speak. 



In addition to the general course of the chains thus laid down, there 

 is another fact subordinate yet of no less importance towards determin- 

 ing the physical formation of this part of the country. When the two 

 mountain ranges have for some time preserved their parallel east and 

 west course, the northern is observed to deflect or send off a branch 

 towards the south, while a corresponding deflexion or ramification of the 

 southern chain comes to meet it, and the plain which otherwise would 

 have been one continued expanse from east to west is thus cut into a 

 number of valleys, the longitudinal axis of which however, is still in 

 general to be found in the same direction. If we conceive these valleys 

 to be few, spacious, and well marked towards the north, and south, while 

 in the central or Kohat region, they become small, numerous, and 

 crowded so as to resemble a tangled maze, or net work, we shall have a 

 just general conception of that tract of country west of the Indus, which 

 may be familiarly described as lying between Kabul and Kdlabdgh. 



Unquestionable geological facts, such as the structure of igneous rocks, 

 poured out under strong pressure, the presence of fossil shells, &c. lead 

 me to the belief that several if not all of these valleys were at some 

 former time the receptacles of a series of inland lakes, and the nature of 

 the shells found (principally planorbes and paludinse), seems to indicate 

 that the waters of these lakes had been fresh. In this manner three 

 grand sheets of water separated by the mountain deflexions before alluded 

 to, would appear to have occupied the entire country from Kabul to 

 the Indus, and their basins may now be distinguished as the plains 

 which afford sites to the three cities of Kabul, Jalalabad, and Peshawar. 

 The drainage of these basins is most tranquilly carried on by the Kabul 

 river which runs along the northern edge of each, conveying their 

 united waters to the Indus ; but in former times when more energetic 

 means were necessary the mountain barriers burst and the shattered 

 fragments and rolled blocks, that now strew the Khaiber pass bear tes- 

 timony to its once having afforded exit to a mighty rush of waters, while 

 the Gidergalla (jackal's neck) or long defile east of the plain of Pesha- 

 war clearly points out the further course of the torrent towards the 

 bed of the Indus, whence its passage to the ocean was easy, and natural. 

 While at Jamrad I had an opportunity of observing a fact which strong- 

 ly supports the idea I have ventured to propose for a well which the 

 Sikhs were employed in sinking within their new fort of Fatteh Garh 9 



