The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c13.s1.t1.7

c13.s1.t1.7

In the 1300 kilometre long and 400 kilometre broad strip of India between the 20° and 24° parallels, a relatively dry climate was dominant in the younger pleistocene which is represented in the gravel deposits of these rivers. Two of these cycles can be distinguished and they are separated by a phase of formation of dry wood-soils ( humus ), which would not have needed a damper climate than the one that exists in those regions. The first dry cycle begins with a coarser gravel than the second, which perhaps points to a greater fluviatile action of the rivers. In the western parts of this belt (Gujarat), there are traces of wind activity and it becomes less as we go to the east and south-east. To the north-west of Gujarat, there is the great Indian desert which encloses parts of Rajputana and southern Punjab. Climatologically this is the dry area of the eastern end of the Sahara strip and the geological observations show now, that in the later Pleistocene, this dry area at least must have stretched twice as far to the south and east.¹