CUTCH, a protected principality under the presidency of Bombay, stretches along the gulf of its own name and the Indian ocean between Guzerat and Sinde. It extends in n. lat. from 22° 45 to 24° 40', and in e. long. from 68° 26' to 71° 45', containing, in something of a triangular form with the maritime line as a base, an area of 15,100 sq.m., and a pop. of rather more than half a million. It is divided naturally into C. proper and the Thum of Cutch.-1. C. proper, consisting of 6,500 sq.m., and numbering nearly all the inhabitants, is the belt on the sea-shore, touching Sinde, of which it may be regarded as a physical continuation, on the n.w., and being separated by a detached por tion of the Itunn from Guzerat on the s.c. While the southern edge of this belt is merely a sandy desert, the northern section, traversed lengthwise by two parallel ranges of hills, presents, amid much sterility, many fertile tracts, which yield cotton, rice, cte., and feed a large stock of horses, trine, buffaloes, and camels. The grand defect of the country is the scarcity of water. Hence the crops occasionally fail from the scantiness of irrigation; and in the month of Mar., 1861, this region was said to be suffering more severely than almost any other in India from a nearly general famine. Timber is scarce, for the growth in the mountains is chiefly brushwood. Here and there, however, decayed trunks of great size, more particularly on the southern ridge, indicate the for mer existence of noble forests. The mineral productions are coal, iron, and alum. The
traces of volcanic action are numerous. Earthquakes also have recently occurred; one of which, in July, 1819, besides shaking every fortification to its foundations, and destroying several hundreds of people, threw up an enormous mound of earth and sand many miles in extent, and simultaneously submerged an adjacent district of correspond iug size. The pop. of the state was estimated, in 1S71, to be 409,522, being about 63 individuals to a sq. mile. The ruler is styled the rao; and the feudatory chieftains under him are about 200.-2. Runn of C.—subdivided into two parts, the smaller, of 1000 sq.m., on the e., and the larger, of 7,000 sq.m., on the n.—is merely an amphibious desert, being, in a great measure, hard ground during the dry season, and then, in turn, a sort of shallow lake formed by the heavyrains and pent-up tides of the s.w. monsoon. It is supposed to have been originally a permanent inlet of the ocean, and to have had its level raised by some such convulsion of nature as that which marked the year 1819. The periodical disappearance of the waters leaves behind it one continuous crust of salt. This dreary waste, however,is not without its elevated spots, the islets, doubtless, of a remoter era. Herds of wild asses and clouds of flies are its only inhabitants, and to cross it by day, except in the rainy season, is almost certain death.