'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎151] (284/458)

X
part of III
m from being |
sailed Dumolift]
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t orle^ 1 ' 111
CUTCH VOLCANOES,
the hill from top to bottom about thirty feet across, and six feet deep.
Great trees were upset by it, and the rocks rent twenty to thirty
feet in pieces, as if blasted by gunpowder, and thrown to the opposite
sides of the fissure. The appearance presented in no way resembled
that of a land slip—the bursting force had obviously been from the
interior. It was not stated that any erupted matter had been thrown
out; there was no appearance of any volcanic vents in the neighbour
hood, and no tradition of volcanoes ever having existed.*
In the end of October, 1849, something like an ebullition of pesti
lential gas, the discharge probably of a submarine volcano, occurred off
Porebunder, in Kattiawar, and was manifest for thirty or forty miles out
at sea : the fish were poisoned by it, and for days lay floating in myriads
on the surface of the water, f An incident similar to this had occurred
at Berampore, in May, 1810 : the water in a large tank, usually pure,
and which for a period of thirty-four years had never exhibited any
thing extraordinary, suddenly became of a dark green colour, and an
immense quantity of fish, many of them weighing from eight to four
teen pounds, floated dead on the surface, and were afterwards removed
in cart loads, and made use of as manure, the people ascribed it to an
earthquake,^ which then visited Calcutta.
\ 1
There is no record of the Cutch volcanoes having ever been in a
state of permanent activity, and they seem rather to have played the
part of spiracles to the gases of earthquakes, when the earth,
seemed with a kind of cholic pinched and vexed,” with fits of vomitting
of lava or of flame. On the border of the chain of mountains, and
eighteen miles from Lukput, the most westerly town in Cutch, is a
hill believed by the Hindoos at one time to have been a volcano. Ifc
has long ceased to emit flame or smoke, but is still an object of wor«
ship amongst the Hindoos.§ It does not appear to exhibit any ves
tige of lava, scorim, or ashes; a bitumenous earth, with a strong
disagreeable odour, is dug out of the side of it, and used as incense in
* Bl. As. Trans, vol. xvi.
t See Report of 1850 , B G.S.
^ Asiatic Annual Register vol, xii. p. 465.
§ McMurclo’s Account of tUe Province of Cutch, Bombay Lit. Trans, vol. ii., p. 21o,
4 to. edition.