1837.] 



Bombay Islands. 



177 



Contemporaneous with the appearance of the Island of Vaypi, the 

 waters which during the rainy season are discharged from the ghauts, 

 broke through the banks of the river Cocci, and overwhelmed a vil- 

 lage of the same name with such impetuosity as to sweep it away, and 

 formed in that district a river, a lake, and a harbour so spacious, that 

 very large ships can now lie in security on the north-east side of Cochin, 

 where the river runs into the sea.* 



According to the Hindoo records, the ocean has made great inroads 

 upon the opposite shore of India ; for, it appears, from the researches, 

 of D. Duante de Meneses, Portuguese governor of India in 1522, among 

 the native writings, that " Miliapore," seven leagues from " Paleacate," 

 the ruins of which were then on the sea shore, was surrounded, accord- 

 ing to tradition, 1500 years previous to that date, by 3,300 stately 

 churches, and that the site of that most ancient city was distant twelve 

 leagues from the sea. We are also informed that " St. Thomas drag- 

 ged out of the sea an immense mass of timber, which all the force of 

 elephants and art of men could not move."f 



In the figure which we have given, it is evident that the inclined 

 plain at the land has been comparatively but recently submersed, while 

 the horizontal bed has been for a longer period subjected to the action 

 of the sea, as is evinced by the layer of sand and shells. The whole of 

 this horizontal portion, likewise, we may decidedly conclude, was in- 

 undated at the same period, for, after the sea had been raised to the 

 level of forty-five fathoms from the present surface of the ocean, we 

 can see no impediment to its laying the whole plain, extending for at 

 least a hundred miles of longitude, completely under water. 



The Hindoos, on the Malabar coast, have a tradition that the sea ex- 

 tended to the foot of the ghauts. There does not appear, however, 

 evidence tending in any degree to prove that such an occurrence has 

 been of recent date ; but we are rather disposed to consider the native 

 account, as an indistinct remnant of the almost universal tradition of a 

 deluge during the human era. 



The agencies of torrents appear of too trivial a nature, to afford a 

 sufficient source of such an extensive submarine formation, as that 

 which we observe along the Concan and Malabar coasts, although there 

 can be no hesitation in admitting that where considerable rivers do exist, 

 the debris collected by the force of their currents must prove a se- 

 rious obstacle to the encroachments of the ocean. But at Bombay where 

 the bank is much broader than in other parts of the coast, no remarka- 

 ble accumulations occur at the mouths of the rivers Panwell and Pen, 



* Viaggio alle Indie Orientali da F. P. da S. Bartolomeo, Roma, 1796, 8vo, English 

 translation from the German of Dr. R. Forster, 8vo. 1800. 



# Sousa's " Portuguese Asia," torn. i. 270, 



