'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1865 to December 1867. (Edited by the Honorary Secretary.) Volume XVIII.' [‎61] (88/268)

BOMBAY GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. Ixl
overspreading a wider and wider surface of it. This advance of the sea
in the Runn is very marked. Lieutenant Colonel Rigby, late Commis«
sioner in the boundary disputes between the Gaekwar and the Nawab An honorific title; an official acting as a provincial deputy ruler in South Asia; or a significant Muslim landowner in nineteenth century India.
of Joonaghur, two or three years ago laid down the frontier of the
small village of Bheemkatta, situated on the borders of the Runn.
Since then several acres belonging to the village have been overflowed
by the sea.
The complete subsidence of the Runn would exercise a marked effect
on the climate and prosperity of the adjacent countries. The tempera
ture of Kattiawar, Cutch, and Pahlunpoor, would be lowered bv several
degrees ; the rainfall over those countries increased ; Wowannia and
Jhinjoora would become great ports ; and the strait formed between
Wurdwan and Ahmedabad, through the neck of Kattiawar, would con
vert it into an island, and possibly become the course of the trade
between Sind and Bombay, in place of the present ocean course. Unless
also Ahmedabad and Agra are soon connected by rail, the formation of
a strait through the neck of Kattiawar would open up all the trade of
Rajpootana and the North-West Provinces to Bombay.
The rate at which the water is advancing both in the Runn and on
the south coast of Kattiawar is obviously a matter of the very highest
importance on scientific and economical and political grounds, and were
annual observations of its advances made for a series of years at least,
much scientific information, possibly throwing light on the general
geogiaphical evolution of land on the globe, would be gained. These
obsenations might be made, at comparatively trifling expense, by
Government authorising their Political Agents in Kattiawar, Cutch,
and Pahlunpoor, to place mehtas at certain fixed points on their re
spective shores of the Runn to record yearly the date and the extent
of the influx of the sea. In Kattiawar the best spots for stations would
e Balumba, Mallia, Capurnee, Bujjana, and some stations on the bound
ary between the Rhadunpoor and Jhinjoowarrah talookas. The chiefs
ould voiuntaiily place mehtas at the stations named were Government
t0 ex P ress a wish that they should do so. Mehtas should also be
1 aced along the south coast of Kattiawar, at Gogo, Bhownuggur, and
. k°^ era > and it would be as well also to have a survey of the sandbanks
the Gulf of Cambay made yearly at a fixed season over the next ten
or twenty years.