File:Across coveted lands - or, A journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta, overland (1903) (14781606215).jpg

Identifier: acrosscovetedlan02land (find matches)
Title: Across coveted lands : or, A journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta, overland
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Landor, Arnold Henry Savage, 1865-1924
Subjects: Asia, Central -- Description and travel Iran -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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human tools. We then came across what at first seemed aconfused commotion of sand and mud, but itsformation was very curious, and looked as if itcovered an underlying city of great size. Thesurface sand seemed to reproduce to a certainextent the form of the structures that weredown below, such as quadrangular buildings,walls, domes, etc. It was not the natural forma-tion of sand on a natural ground. In oneparticular place a whole city wall with towerscould be traced, just showing above ground, soperfectly rectangular that although covered bysand it would seem certain that a fortress mustbe buried under this spot. All around these particular suspected buriedcities the sand is absolutely flat, and there wouldbe no other plausible reason for this most extra-ordinary irregular accumulation of sand repro-ducing forms of walls, domes and towers againstall the general rules of local sand accumulations,unless such obstacles existed below to compelthe sand to accumulate in resemblance to them.
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XXVI SAND ACCUMULATIONS 271 This theory is strengthened too by the fact that,here and there, some of the higher buildingsactually may be seen to project above ground.The sand mixed with salt had, on getting wet,become solid mud, baked hard by the sun. Anybody interested in sand and its move-ments, its ways and process of accumulation,could not do better than take a trip to this partof Sistan. Little as one may care about sand,one is bound to get interested in its ways, andone point in its favour is that with a certainamount of logic and observation one can alwaysunderstand why it has assumed a certain forma-tion rather than another—a pleasing feature notalways existing in all geological formations ofthe scenery one goes through. The great expanse of irregular surface soil,with its innumerable obstacles and undulations,was, of course, bound to give curious results inthe sand accumulations south of it, where thesand could deposit itself in a more undisturbedfashion and was affected by

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