*88 VREDENBURG : SKETCH OF BALUCHISTAN DESERT. 



"tangi;" a physical feature which is specially exaggerated where th<2 

 river bed traverses a calcareous band of some other hard rock, such 

 as an intrusion of diorite. This channel may represent the outlet of 

 a comparatively large drainage area within the hilly region, but on 

 reaching the plain its fate is no better than that of the small furrows 

 just mentioned : no sooner has it broken through the last ridge of the 

 mountains than it separates at once into a many-branched delta, form- 

 ing a broad and shallow cone of dejection or " alluvial fan." 



The talus of conglomerate skirting the hill ranges, and formed 



either by the deposits of the numerous parallel 

 Talus or " daman." . . i , ^ , r • * 



channels, or by the coalescence of a series of 

 u fans, " takes the shape of a broad inclined plane which is termed 

 the "daman," that is the "skirt" of the mountain. Owing to the 

 absence of any powerful drainage, these deposits attain a consider^ 

 able size, and the " daman " reaches proportions almost comparable 

 to those of the mountain whose debris have formed it, reaching 

 higher and higher upon its slopes. The gradient of these taluses is 

 so low that the eye hardly realizes the great height which they reach 

 up the mountain slopes, and this explains the dwarfed appearance of 

 many of the hill ranges notwithstanding their considerable altitude. 



This great compound talus or " daman," formed as it is by a 

 number of overlapping taluses and cones of dejection, is extremely 

 variable in its composition, coarse conglomerates and finer deposits 

 alternating in a very irregular manner. Some of the coarser deposits 

 are eminently permeable and the water supplied by the scanty 

 rainfall, instead of being able to remove this gigantic deposit, 

 becomes stored within its mass. It is then protected against evapora- 

 tion, and this explains the important part played by these talus 

 deposits in the economy of the district. From this natural 

 reservoir is drawn the supply of water which flows along the artificial 

 underground channels called u k£rez" in Baluchistan and "kanaV 

 in Persia, or which, of late years, has been obtained with less labour 

 by the boring of artesian wells, allowing many a fair oasis to flourish 

 in places that would be otherwise nothing but desert, The question 

 ( io ) 



