170 



NOTE ON A RAISED BEACH AT ADEN. 



P. 8. — Since I left Aden many alterations may have taken 

 place in the configuration of the rock in the process of 

 fortifying the place, and the Eaised Beach been swept away. 

 If it has disappeared, a similar one may be found on the 

 rocky hill, or island across the head of the bay. Undisturbed 

 shells and sand about thirty feet above the sea-beach, and 

 up the side of a volcanic formation, can only be accounted 

 for by a very tranquil and gradual elevation of the land. 

 I am at a loss to account for the shells enduring so long, and 

 maintaining the same precise position, and for the sandy 

 floor of the hollow remaining with such a smooth surface. 

 A similar Eaised Beach with shells of the same kind as 

 those on the coast, were discovered in the isle of San Lorenzo 

 near Lima, South America. 



2nd P.S. — I make this opportunity subserve to state that 

 in the year 1831 when on a shooting excursion near Palam- 

 kotta, in the South of India, I discovered on the surface of a 

 low hill north-west of Shady Khan's Choultry about six or 

 seven miles from Tinnevelly on the Madura road, some shells 

 of a large kind of ostrea being about the size of a plate. I 

 cannot now determine whether these shells were fossil or 

 recent ; but am more inclined to the former opinion. I do 

 not possess the specimen I carried away with me, but am 

 certain others were left behind. Since the above was written 

 I met with the following passage in an old journal of mine ; it 

 imparts more importance to the above discovery at Shady 

 Khan's Choultry than my memory first assigned to it : " In 

 the range of hills near Shady Khan's Choultry, oceanic 

 deposits occur. I picked up specimens of the bivalves, chiefly 

 examples of the large ostrea ; and remarked pebbles which 

 had evidently been rounded by the action of water ; the 

 country below is sandy." 



The natives have a tradition that the low country of 

 Bamnad as far as Madura was once covered by the sea. 



Henry Cqngreve, Lieut. -Colonel, E.A. 



