2 LAKE : GEOLOGY OF SOUTH MALABAR. 



that the coast is enabled to resist the attacks of the sea. Otherwise 

 so loosely built a shore, resting, as this appears to do, on a very in- 

 secure foundation of mud, would always be subject to change. 



The only place, however, where there seems to have been much 

 change recently, is the island of Chctliyam. This island lies be- 

 tween the mouths of the Beypore and Kadalhundi Rivers, and is cut 

 off from the mainland by a backwater connecting those two rivers. 

 Dr. Buchanan states 1 that, when he visited the neighbourhood (De- 

 cember 1800), there was no connection between the two rivers. 

 But he mentions that it is marked on Major Rennel's map. It is 

 also marked, nearly as it at present exists, in the map of Malabar 

 by Lieutenant Ward and Captain Connor. We may, therefore, con- 

 clude that Dr. Buchanan was mistaken, and that the backwater has 

 been in existence at least since the date of Major Rennel's map. 



The island of Chaliyam now consists partly of low lateritic hills 

 and partly of marshes; and, according to some accounts, very rapid 

 changes have taken place in these marshes. But as they lie almost 

 level with the sea, and at the mouths of two rivers subject to floods, 

 this is not surprising. 



At a few other points near the coast there is evidence of some 

 very recent alterations in the lie of the land ; but the amount of 

 these changes is small, and their importance slight. 



It is, however, only recently (geologically speaking) that the coast 

 has become at all fixed and steady. The whole of the backwater 

 region has been under the sea since most of the Malabar laterite was 

 formed ; and not far outside the area under consideration, there have 

 been very considerable changes within historic times. 



The coastal and low-lying region extends up the Beypore River, 



as far as Ferokh (Ferokkabad). Southward it 

 Coastal region. 



is bounded on the east by the Kadalhundi River, 



as far as the point where the general direction of that river changes 



suddenly from west to north. South of this, the low land reaches to 



1 Journey through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, Madras reprint, 1870. Vol. II, 

 page 131. 



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