EPICENTRAL AND SEVERELY SHAKEN AREAS. 9 



PART I. — Records of Observations. 

 CHAPTER I. 



EPICENTRAL AND SEVERELY SHAKEN AREAS. 



Mandalay City and District. 



The city of Mandalay lies in the centre of the narrow 

 belt of the Irrawaddy alluvium wliicli b this neighbourhood 

 diminishes to a minimum width of some II miles. To the west of 



the river the alluvial plain is bounded by the long narrow range 



of the Sagaing hills, belonging to the Mogok gneissic series, with 

 terraces of yellow sand-rock of late Tertiary age covering its base. 

 On the east rise the lofty limestone hills forming the rim of the Shan 

 plateau. The alluvium probably does not attain a very great thick- 

 ness, for to the north of the city .Mandalay Hill rises steeply from 

 the plain. Both this and other isolated hills in the vicinity are 

 composed of gneisses and crystalline limestones of tin 1 Mogok 

 series. The whole length of the westers edge of the Shan plateau 

 forms a great scrap marked by a fault, which is held to bear a 

 considerable geological likeness to the outer bounding fault of the 

 Himalaya. 



Of the 2,100 square miles comprised within the Mandalay district 

 only about 600 square mi les are flat land. This lies along the Irra- 

 waddy river with a few solitary hills rising in places from the level 

 alluvium. The remaining 1,500 square miles, in the north and east 

 of the district, are made up of high hills and plateaux forming a 

 part of the Shan tableland of Upper Burma. At the edye of this 

 the fall to the plains averages 3,000 to 4,000 feet in 10 miles. 



Mandalay city is divided into — 



1. The Municipal area. 



2. The Cantonment. 



The former is enclosed within an area which measures about 6 

 miles from north to south and 3 miles from east to west. It is laid out 

 symetrically with wide roads, and although many brick buildings 



