'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1865 to December 1867. (Edited by the Honorary Secretary.) Volume XVIII.' [‎62] (89/268)

Ixii
*
proceedings of the
The flooding of the Bunn by the ten » un.lonbtedly c.n.ed by ,„1.
canic oction, no. depressing as it one, nosed «, and not by the erod.ng
action of the tides, to .hieh the eneroa.hnren . of the sea on the sonth
coast of Kattiawar „e due. In the 16 «h vo ume of the Transact,,,,
of the Bombay Geographical Society, Genera LeGrand Jacob record,
several volcanic shoots in the Ennn, which but fo, h,m won d neve,
have been heard of; and Government should instruct the mehtas w e
have proposed that they should place at different stations to note the
date of volcanic shocks also amongst their observations.
The reader will have remarked that Kattiawar, Cutch, and the Runn
have been evolved exactly where great changes in their contour and
oscillations in level might be expected. They lie in the angle, almost
a right angle, between the west coast of India and the coast of the
Mekran and Sind. Into that void the deposits of the Nerbudda,
Tap tee, Saburmuttee, and Indus are shot; and while the ocean currents
would accumulate them just where Cutch and Kattiawar appear, the
scour of the great Indian rivers flowing into the Gulf of Cambay would
determine the contour of the southern border of Kattiawar, which might
be expected to be more and more encroached on as increasing deposits
in the Gulf of Cambay more and more deflected the scour of the Ner-
budda, Mhye, and Taptee northward. The evolution of Kattiawar and
Cutch is due also to volcanic action, and this connects the phenomena
we are now reviewing with the geological history of the plains of Sind
and Bengal. Where we now have the sandy plain of Sind and the
rich plain of Bengal, was once a broad strait between continental Asia
and the island which the Deccan then was. The Indus and Ganges ar e
all that now remain of this strait, which was gradually filled up by the
deposits of the tributaries of the Indus and Ganges, and their upheaval
by volcanic force. That action is still in operation, and of course its
effects are most marked in such a district as the Bunn, lying almost
level with the sea. The Venerable Archdeacon Pratt has made a calcu
lation that the attraction of the Himalayas raises the ocean several
hundred feet above its general level all along the western coast of India
the height to which the ocean is thus raised increasing gradually
from Cape Comorin to the Coast of Sind, where, if we remember cor
rectly, it stands nearly 1,000 feet above its general level. Well, if the
Himalayas were to sink into the earth, as mountains often have sunk?