320

INDIA

Africa, and in Alaska, against which India never has competed,
 and never could compete.
There is little mineral exportation from India now.
Such wealth as is acquired direct from the rocks of which
her soil is composed, is valuable chiefly for purposes of
internal development, and in this capacity its value can
hardly be over-estimated. The peninsula of India is
infinitely old, older than the Himalayas, though possibly
not so old as Ceylon. It is interesting to reflect that
there was a time when the Himalayas were not—when
the crystalline rocks which form the axis and backbone
of that mighty mass of mountains had not as yet protruded
 themselves above the general level of the world’s
surface, whilst they remained crushed beneath the stratided
 bed of an indefinite ocean. Since they were upheaved,
 and the more recent strata above them has been
washed down southwards towards the plains of the peninsula
 carrying with them many of the mineral deposits of
the original crystalline matrix, other vast variations in
Indian geography have occurred which have all tended
to distribute the wealth of the ancient beds into modern
channels. There was probably a time when the Brahmapufra,
 instead of making its placid way to the Bay of
Bengal, swept round the base of the Himalayas right across
India, and possibly joined the Indus before it found the
sea. This was in days when its banks were lined with a
tropical jungle and gigantic mammals stalked through
‘he land and left their bones in the Siwalik system of
recent deposits. The delta land of Lower Bengal is all
comparatively new. It covers an area of 55,000 square
miles of alluvial deposit, 450 feet deep, and it is growing
still. Successive deltas have formed south of the Khasia
Hills, and have in turn been submerged beneath fresh
deltas of alluvium washed down from the mountains,
Throughout the alluvial formations of the Indo-Gangetic
 basin we may search in vain for that mineral wealth
which only lies embedded in ancient rock formations ;
but some of it (gold, for instance, and precious stones)
may be found (and is indeed chiefly found) in the detritus