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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: GEO-GNU |
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GILGIT .) A few miles below the junction it passes Bunji, and from that point to a point beyond Chilas (5o M. below Bunji) it runs within the sphere of British interests. Then once again it resumes its " independent " course through the wild mountains of Kohistan and Hazara, receiving tribute from both sides (the Buner contribution being the most noteworthy) till it emerges into the plains of the Punjab below Darband, in 34 Io' N. All this part of the river has been mapped in more or less detail of late
refuge
Mutiny days have been swept clean, and many ancient mysteries have been solved in the course of its surveying. From its entrance into the plains of India to its disappearance in the Indian Ocean, the Indus of to-day is the Indus of the 'fifties modified only in some interesting particulars. It Indus of has been bridged at several important points. There the plains. are bridges even in its upper mountain courses. There is a wooden pier bridge at Leh of two spans, and there are native suspension bridges of cane or twig-made rope swaying uneasily across the stream at many points intervening between Leh and Bunji; but the first English-made iron sus-pension bridge is a little above Bunji, linking up the highroad between Kashmir and Gilgit. Next occurs the iron girder railway bridge at Attock, connecting Rawalpindi
Forty
series of gorges which continue from Kushalgarh to the borders of the Kohat district
Sagar
establishment
fleet
Within the limits of Sind the vagaries of the Indus channels have necessitated a fresh survey of the entire riverain. The results, however, indicate not so much a marked departure in the general course of the river as a great variation in the channel beds within what may be termed its outside banks. Collaterally much new information has been obtained about the ancient beds of the river, the sites of ancient cities and the extraordinary developments of the Indus delta. The changing channels of the main stream since those prehistoric days when a branch of it found its way to the Runn of Cutch, through successive stages of its gradual shift westwardsa process of displacement which marked the disappearance of many populous places which were more or less dependent on the river for their water supplyto the last and greatest change of all, when the stream burst its way through the limestone ridges of Sukkur and assumed a course which has been fairly constant for 150 years, have all been traced out with systematic care by modern surveyors till the medieval history of the great river has been fully gathered from the characters written on the delta surface. That such changes of river bed and channel should have occurred within a comparatively limited period of time is the less astonishing if we remember that the Indus, like many of the greatest rivers of the world, carries down sufficient detritus to raise its own bed above the general level of the surrounding plains in an appreciable and measurable degree. At the present time the bed of the Indus is stated to be 70 ft. above the plains of the Sind frontier, some 5o m. to the west of it.The total length of the Indus, measured directly, is about 1500 m. With its many curves and windings it stretches to about 2000 m., the statistics. area of its basin being computed at 372,000 sq. m. Even at its lowest in winter it is 500 ft. wide at Iskardo (near the Gilgit junction) and 9 or to ft. deep. The temperature of the surface water during the cold season in the plains is found to be 5 below that of the air (64 and 69 F.). At the beginning of the hot season, when the river is bringing down snow water, the difference is 14 (87 and tor June). At greater depths the difference is still greater. At Attock, where the river narrows between rocky banks, a height of 50 ft. in the Hood season above lowest level is common, with a velocity of 13 m. per hour. The record rise (since British occupation of the Punjab) is 8o ft. At its junction with the Panjnad (the combined rivers of the Punjab east of the Indus) the Panjnad is twice the width of the Indus, but its mean depth is less, and its velocity little more than one-third. This discharge of the Panjnad at low season is 69,000 cubic ft. per second, that of the Indus 92,000. Below the junction the united discharge in flood season is 380,000 cubic ft., rising to 460,000 (the record in August). The Indus after receiving the other rivers carries down into Sind, in the high flood season, turbid water containing silt to the amount of q10 part by weight, or 4 }o by volumeequal to 648o millions of cubic ft. in the three months of flood. This is rather less than the Ganges carries. The silt is very fine sand and clay. Unusual floods, owing to landslips or other exceptional causes, are not infrequent. The most disastrous flood of this nature occurred in 1858. It was then that the river rose 8o ft. at Attock. The most striking result of the rise was the reversal of the current of the Kabul river, which flowed backwards at the rate of lo m. per hour, flooding Nowshera and causing immense damage to property. The prosperity of the province of Sind depends almost entirely on the waters of the Indus, as its various systems of canals command over nine million acres out of a cultivable area of twelve and a half million acres. See. Maclagan, Proceedings R.G.S., vol. iii.; Haig, The Indus' Della Country (London, 1894); Godwin-Austen, Proceedings R.G.S.. vol. vi. (T. H. H.*) End of Article: GILGIT If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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