The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.495

v3.c20.495

In 1351 Fīrūz marched from Delhi with the object of attempting to recover the fortress of Daulatābād, but his progress was arrested by reports that the raja of Kāngra had ventured to invade his kingdom and plunder some of the districts lying at the foot of the mountains, and he marched to Sirhind with the object of attacking Kāngra. On his way to Sirhind he observed that a canal might be cut to connect the waters of the Saraswatī with those of another river, probably the Markanda, which rises near Nāhan and flows past Shāhābād, to the south of Ambāla. The two streams were divided by high ground, but the canal was completed by the labours of 50,000 workmen. In the course of the excavation large fossil bones were discovered, some of which were correctly identified as those of elephants, while others were ignorantly supposed to be those of a race of prehistoric men. The records of the reign have proved useful as a guide to later and more scientific investigators, and led to the discovery of the fossil bones of sixty-four *genera* of mammals which lived at the foot of the Himālaya in Pliocene (Siwālik) times, of which only thirty-nine *genera* have species now living. Of eleven species of the elephant only one now survives in India, and of six species of *bos* but two remain.