844 



Oji iJie Geology of Cuich. 



[Oct. 



tinues its course ; the intervening parts being sometimes quite hard and 

 dry ; in others forming very dangerous quicksands. 



The natives have various traditions that the drying up of this sea was 

 sudden, and that boats were tossed on the land and wrecked ; they pre- 

 tend also to assign a date to this event, but their accounts differ so ma- 

 terially and are so vague, that not the slightest reliance can be placed 

 upon them, except to the general fact. 



It is evident that the Runn could not have been drained by the burst- 

 ing of its boundaries, at least since it was deep enough to be navigable ; 

 because its present surface, notwithstanding the sediment which yearly 

 accumulates on it, is even now so little raised above the sea's level as to 

 be flooded by the mere effects of the wind ; but the most probable sup- 

 position is, not that it was ever a detached inland sea or lake, but that 

 it communicated with the ocean by its present outlets, and that its bed 

 has been raised, partly perhaps by a gradual movement, and partly by 

 violent upheavements during earthquakes. Even such marked changes 

 of level as the raising of Ulbih-Bund, and the sinking of the ground near 

 the large town of Luck put, would have passed unrecorded but for the 

 accidental circumstance of the district having been visited by a British 

 officer. Other portions of this vast area, the greater part of which is 

 never traversed by man, may have been similarly affected at that time, 

 and yet the changes remain unkown. 



Successive Marine and FresJiwater Beds. — The submerged tract near 

 Luckput, or Lake of Sindree, may, I think, illustrate the manner in 

 which successive marine and freshwater deposits may be produced. 

 This tract was at one period a richly cultivated district, periodically 

 flooded by a branch of a great river, and produced large quantities of 

 rice. In this state numerous land testacea no doubt occupied it, and 

 were mixed with the remains of fluviatile species brought down by the 

 floods. The bones of animals used in agriculture, and those of various 

 domestic species, also the remains of broken pottery, perhaps coins, and 

 other proofs of civilized life, might likewise have been imbedded. Sud- 

 denly, owing to the damming up of the river by the Sindians, the sup- 

 ply of fresh water ceased, and the tract was no longer cultivated or inha- 

 bited. Some time after this an earthquake occurred, uplifting one part 

 and depressing below the level of the ocean another, which was imme- 

 diately converted into a salt lake. A perfectly new description of de- 

 posit and organic remains must then have been accumulated, consisting 

 wholly of marine animals, principally such as inhabit shallows and tide- 

 ways. Again, owing to the sudden melting of the snow on far distant 

 mountains (the Himalayahs) the waters of the river came down with 

 such force as to burst all the bunds built across it, as well as that 



