A History of Agriculture in India v1.c7.23

v1.c7.23

Alberuni (Abu Raihan Muhammed bin Ahmed), a Central Asian scholar, with keen perception, came to northern India early in the eleventh century, and made a remarkable observation on the structure and formation of the Indo-Gangetic alluvium. "If you have seen the soil of India with your own eyes and meditate on its nature," wrote Alberuni, "if you consider the rounded stones found in the earth, however deeply you dig, stones that are of smaller size at greater distance from the mountains, and where the streams flow more slowly, stones that appear pulverized in the shape of sand where the streams begin to stagnate near their mouths and near the sea, if you consider all this, you could scarcely help thinking that India has once been a sea which by degrees has been filled up by the alluvium of the streams."¹