THE ALLAH-BUND. 2g 



accounts and examinations of it one alone is based on such a survey 

 as would render it possible to say whether there had been any 

 elevation or not. This one is the report by Captain Baker, of the 

 Bengal Engineers, in I844, 1 whose statement is very precise, that the 

 bund rises some 20 feet above the water of the Sindri lake and that 

 from this elevation it gradually slopes to the northward till it becomes 

 undistinguishable from the plain. 



Against this definite statement the only argument which can be 

 brought is that of Mr. Wynne, that if there had been such an elevation, 

 the floods of 1826, instead of forcing their way through the Bund, 

 should have accumulated on its northern side and found their way 

 round, and not through, the supposed barrier. He urges that the 

 recorded facts become intelligible only on the supposition that the 

 fall which existed originally between the northern margin of the 

 elevated tract and its southern boundary of maximum elevation, was 

 great enough to leave aslope sufficient to enable the stream to follow 

 its old direction. As the width of the Allah Bund is put at 10 miles 

 and the elevation of its southern face at 20 feet, this would neces- 

 sitate an original fall of more than 2 feet per mile, or double that of 

 the whole Indus from Attock to the sea. 2 



This argument is a telling one, but it must be remembered that 

 though the height of the dam is given by some authorities as 20 feet, 

 the statements of different accounts not only vary greatly, but in 

 every case represent the total apparent elevation on the south side of 

 the barrier, and consequently represent the sum of the depression 

 on the south and the elevation, if any, on the north. According to 

 Captain Baker's survey, of which a reduced copy will be found on 

 plate I, the total elevation on the north could not have been more 

 than 10 feet at the place where the Puran cuts through the bund. 

 Supposing this to have been the amount of the elevation, and the 

 channel to have had this depth — as might well have been the case 



v » Trans. Bombay Geol Soc, VI!, 186-188. (1846.) 

 2 Memoirs IX, p. 42. 



( 29 ) 



