BHU
292
At a distance varying from 12 to 20 miles to the north of the high bank or ridge which I have been describing, and to the north of the Chauka, there is in pargana Khairigarh another high bank, which runs nearly parallel to and at a short distance from the north of the river Sarju, in the same manner as the Bhiir ridge is parallel to and at a short distance from the south of the river Chauka. I think it probable that an examination of the geological formation of Oudh would result in establishing the fact that at a period
this part of
which, geologically speaking, may be considered to be comparatively recent, the large tract between these two high banks formed the bed of a large inland lake. Not only the whole surface of the soil of the low plain along the south of the Chauka in Bhur which is annually flooded, but also manj portions of the comparatively higher plains to the north of the Chauka in pargana Nighasan which are now never inundated, seem to bear evident marks of having been at some remote time subject to fluvial action.
Take, for instance, the peculiar formation of jhil known in the local These bhagghars are very numerous all over the tract between the two high ridges in Bhur and Khairigarh, and always bhagghar, then, is a large jhil of semicirexactly resemble each other. cular shape, not always or seldom communicating with any stream, and having a steep high bank on the convex side of the semicircle, and a low marshy flat shore on the concave side, stretching from one horn to the other horn of the semicircle. The water is often very deep under the high bank, and towards the other side gradually becomes quite shallow. Every bhagghar seems to me to mark some place where the Chauka has at one time or another flowed, or, in other words, the bhagghars and their high banks mark the successive recessions by which the great inland sea has in process of ages been transformed into the series of parallel rivers which we now find existing. The discussion of this problem, however, more properly finds a place in the description of pargana Nighasan. dialect as a bhagghar.
A
Besides the changes in the river's course just mentioned, there have
been other and slighter changes in its course quite recently in fact hardly a year passes by in which the stream flows in exactly the bed in which
it
flowed the year before.
The fluvial action by which the change is efiected is of two kinds sometimes it is from below the surface of the ground ; the river undermines a high bank, causing it to crumble away bit by bit and gradually sink to the This action is most destructive cultivated fields, groves level of the water. of fruit trees, and weU-peopled villages are swept away by the water, and the process when once begun continues with no intermission until some chance event, such as a heavy fall of rain, or a tree projecting from the bank, or the gradual formation of a sand bank by the accumulation of fallen soil, or a stranded boat, turns off the water into another channel in its wide
bed.
On
the other hand, sometimes the fluvial action is from above the surface, there does very little injury, as its effects are not permanent. The river in a high flood rises over its banks at some spot where it is rather
and
it
