1859.] The Flooding of tie Indus. 215 



Fresh channels were opened in different parts of the river's course, 

 where it is not circumscribed by rocky banks. The most note- 

 worthy was at Attok, just below the seraie which lies up stream of 

 the Fort. This is below the junction of the Cabul river, where the 

 real bed consists of a double trough worked out in the slate Rock, 

 which comes to the surface in the centre. This trough is 1300 feet 

 broad, and hitherto since 1841 the river has in the cold weather run 

 altogether under the right bank, leaving the other hollow filled up 

 with large blocks of granite, boulders of various sizes, and sand. 

 Since 1849 this has sometimes been entirely dry and sometimes has 

 had an insignificant rill running over it, the tendency being for the 

 rill slightly to increase year by year. But before the prior flood, a 

 stream of considerable size ran here, and now again we have one up- 

 wards of 300 feet wide and about 5 feet deep. The river moreover 

 seems to have set the materials in the bed above, so that a tendency 

 to pour more and more water into the new channel has been esta- 

 blished. The boat bridges now consist of one-third more boats than 

 used formerly to be sufficient. 



A little below Kallabagh again, where the set was so marked upon 

 the right bank, its result has not been, as might have been expected, 

 to deepen the channel running under that side ; but by encroaching 

 on the land it has actually shallowed it, so that the navigation, which 

 was conducted exclusively in that channel formerly, cannot now 

 make use of it, but is forced into another which was not previously 

 passable for boats. 



I do not think however that this change will prove of a permanent 

 character. 



Silt deposit has taken place to an enormous extent wherever 

 there has been a checked or diminished current, particularly in the 

 Chuch valley above Attok, the valley of the Cabul river, and every 

 Nullah and stream opening into the river. Of all the effects pro- 

 duced, this is the most striking and will doubtless prove the most 

 lasting. In constructing the Road Trans Indus, we passed over 

 for several miles the silt deposited by the flood of 1841. Where cul- 

 tivation had been carried over it, it was no longer to be recognized, but, 

 where the land had been left unused, it was still found overlying, in 

 the shape of a fine grey admixture of sand and clay about 15 inches 



