ondition of the
country--changes which are some of them so recent as to be noted by
surveyors who have found the remains of forests in districts now entirely
desiccated. Possibly the ordinary processes of denudation and erosion,
acting on those recent deposits which overlie the harder beds of the older
series, may have much to say to these climatic changes, and the wanton
destruction of forests may have assisted the efforts of nature; but it is
difficult to understand the widespread desiccation of large areas of the
Baluch highlands, where evidences of Arab irrigation works and of
cultivation still attest to a once flourishing agricultural condition,
without appealing to more rapidly destructive principles for the change.
There is ample proof throughout the country of alterations of level within
recent geologic periods; and there have even been compressions, resulting
in a relative rise of the ground, over the crests of anticlinal folds,
within historic record. "Proof that this compression is still going on was
given on 20th December 1892, when a severe earthquake resulted from the
sudden yielding of the earth's crust along what appears to be an old line
of fault, west of the Kawaja Amran range, whereby an adjustment took place
indicated by a shortening of some 2-1/2 ft. on the railway line which
crossed the fault." Nor should the evidences of active volcanic agency
afforded by the mud volcanoes of the coast be overlooked. It is probably to
climatic changes (whatever their origin may have been), rather than to the
effects of tribal disturbances, that the Arab's disappearance from the
field of trade and agriculture must be attributed.

[Sidenote: Population.]

The total area of Baluchistan is 132,315 sq. m. and its population in 1901
was 914,551. The population is largely nomadic. The fact that so many as
15,000 camels have been counted in the Bolan Pass during one month of the
annual Brahui migration indicates the dimensions which the movement
assumes. The religion of the country is so overwhelmingly Mahommedan that
out of every 100,000 inhabitants 94,403 are Mussulman, and only 4706
Hindus, while the balance is made up by Christians, Sikhs and other
denominations. Out of the total number 280 in the thousand are literates.
The chief languages spoken are vernaculars of Baluchistan, Pushtu, Panjabi,
Urdu and Sindhi, The [v.03 p.0294] Baluchi language belongs to the Iranian
branch of the Aryan subfamily of the Indo-Europea