'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎241] (416/524)

THE ISLAND OF RISHM, &C.
241
Specimens that I gathered to be the best and purest table-salt I ever
tasted. No fresh water is found in the immediate vicinity of these
eaves ; the labourers collect their drinking-water from a brackish well,
and one or two artificial rain-water tanks about two miles distant. The
water that we drank while pitched there was brought from wells dug
close to the base of the Kownee salt range.
6 . Doctor Colvill has obligingly collected specimens of the rocks
found in the valley and caves. These are transmitted to Bombay
by the present opportunity, and appear to me to be of an interesting
character.
7 . Leaving the salt range, and still following the shore line east
ward, the general formation of sandstone and blue layer is at once re
sumed. The valleys run parallel with the coast line, and the layers rise
on either hand in almost perpendicular scarps to the height of 1 , 2 *
or 300 feet, topped with overhanging ledges of grit. It seems, indeed,
as though the island had originally been a continuous table land, but
that the scourings of the scant rain, and prolonged exposure to the
wind and atmosphere, had gradually broken the table into a series ol
gulleys and eventual valleys. The appearance of this side of the island
is parched and barren as that of the Persian coast in general. Is it
that Nature, when forming this globe, cast her refuse into this Gulf?
Or is it that she left this part of her work unfinished ? . Or is it that
this, like other vast tracts of the earth, is reserved for a time when man
shall multiply, and science shall discover the art of equalising the
rainfall over all lands? Is it, finally, that Nature, weary of hideous
desolation, is hurrying these regions to decay?*
8 . Passing along one of these valleys for about six miles, and about
three miles before reaching the village of Saieek, a little inland, lie the
naptha springs. I send by this opportunity two bottles of the hqui
collected in the stream, and which seems of average burnm 0 q c y
The springs are, however, scant, and I should think of little worth to
trade.
* Wordsworth would never have applied the epithet “ everlasting to the ^ out1 ^
ern hills of Persia. They are all hollow and tumble-down as the towns are. asset
at night, the gloom of their gorges and the precipitous height of their an
them a bold and solemn appearance, but with daylight the illusion ta.-la
31 rj