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Show ~66 RECENT ALTERATIONS OF LEVEL [Ch. XVI, immediate subject of the present chapter. might .require,. in order to lay before the reader the informatiOn obtamed durmg the recent survey of Cutch. e The published account of Lieutenant A. ~urnes ~, who examined that portion of the delta of the Indus m18fl6 and 18~9, confirms the facts before enumerated by us, and furnishes the following important particqlars. The tract around Sindreel which subsided during the earthquake in June, 1819, was con .. verted ft•om dry land into sea in the course of a few hours, the new-formed mere extending for a distance of sixteen miles on each side of the fort, and probably exceeding in area the lake of Geneva. Neither the rush of the sea into this new depression, nor the movement of the earthquake, threw down the small fort of Sindree, the interior of which is said to have become a tank, the water filling the space within the walls, and the four towers continuing to stand, so that on the day after the earthquake the people in the fort who had ascended to the top of ope of the towers saved themselves in boats. lt?mediately after the shock the inhabitants of Sindree saw, at the distance of five miles from their village, a long elevated mound, where previously there had been a low ~md perfectly level plain. To this uplifted tract they gave the name of '' Ullah bund,'' or '' the Mound of God," to distinguish it from an artificial barrier previously thrown across an arm of the Indus. It is already ascertained that this newly raised country is upwards of fifty miles in Jength from east to ~est, runn~ng parallel to that line of subsidence before mentiOned, whJCh caused the grounds around Sindree to be flooded. The range of this elevation extends from Puchum island towards Gharee; its breadth from north to south is conjectured to be in some parts sixteen miles, and its greatest ascertained hei~ht ab~ve the original level of the delta is ten feet, an elevatiOn winch appears to the eye to be very uniform throughout. For several years after the convulsion of 1819, the cours~ of ·the Indus was very unsettled, and at length in 18~6, the nver burst its banks above Sinde, and forcing its way in a more "' Now in the LibraJy of the Royal Asiatic Society. Ch. XVI.] IN THE DELTA OF THE lNDUS, ~67 direct course to the sea, cut right through the " Ullah bund," w~creby a n~tural section was obtained. In the perpendicular cb.ffs thus lmd o.pen, Lieutenant Burnes fuund that the uprmsed land consisted of beds of olay filled with shells. The pew channel of the river, where it intersected the'~ bund,'' was eighteen feet deep, and during the swells in 18~6, it wa~ two or throe hundred yards in width, but in 18~8 the channel was still further enlarged, 'l'he Indus, when it first opened this new passage, threw such a body of water into the new lake or salt ~agoon of Sindre:, that it became fresh for many months, b.ut 1t had recovered 1ts ~altness in 18~8, when the supply of nvet·-water was less copious, and finally it became more salt than the sea, in consequence, as the natives suggested to Lieutenant Burnes, of the saline particles with which " the Runn of Cutch" is impt·egnated. Besides Ulluh bund, there appears to have been another elevation south of Sindree, parallel to that before mentioned respecting which, however, no exact information has yet bee~ communicated. There is a tradition of an earthquake, which, about three centuries before, upheaved a large area of the bed of the sea, and converted it into land in the district now called "the Runn," so that numerous harbours were laid dry and ships were wrecked and engulphed; in confirmation of which account it was observed in 1819, that in the jets of black muddy water thrown ont of fissures in that region, there were cast up numerous pieces of wrought iron and ship nails. \Ve must not conclude without alluding to a moral phenomenon connected with this tremendous catastrophe, which we regard as highly deserving the attention of geologists. 'l'he author above cited states that " these wonderful events passed unheeded by the inhabitants of Cutch," for the region convulsed, though once fertile, had for a long period been reduced to sterility by wan·t of irrigation, so that the natives were ind.ilferent 'as to its fate. Now it is to this profound apathy, winch all but highly civilized nations feel in regard to physical events, not having an immediate influence on their worldly fortunes, that we must ascribe the extraordinary dearth of |