RUNN, a flat tract lying between Sind and Cutch, which is inundated with brackish water during the three monsoon months, and is covered by salt incrustations when dry. Salt is manu factured on it at Janjorm and Patri. The Runn or Rin is a remarkable feature of tho Rajputana desert. It is 150 miles broad; into it the Loni or Looni or salt river enters, and then runs on to the sea. The Looni rises in the Aravalli, and in Marwar it separates the fertile land from the desert, afterwards runs through the Mohan territory, dividing it into the eastern part called Raj-Bah or Sooi-Bah, and the western part called Park'llar or beyond the Khar or LOOM.' TI10 word Rim or Rin is a corruption of Aranya, or the waste ; ' nor can anything in nature be more dreary in the dry weather than this parched desert of salt and mud, the peculiar abode of the khar or wild us, whose love of soli tude has been commemorated in Job. That this enormous depository of salt is of no recent for mation, we are informed by the Greek writent, whose notice it did not escape, and who have preserved in Erinos a nearer approxinuttion to the original Aranya than exists in our • Rin ' or Runn.' Although mainly indebted for its salt to the Looni, whose bed and that of its feeders aro covered with saline deposits, it is also sup plied by the overfiowing,s of the Indus, to which grand stream it may be indebted for its volume of water.
The Runn of Cutch has been subjected to repeated upheavals and depressions within even historic times. A vast space from the Indus eastward, which is now dry land, was, in the time of Alexander, covered by tho waves. The ruins of Balabhipum, near Bhownaggar, are 10 to 15 feet below the surface of the soil. On the 1Gth June 1819, the Ruun was partly submerged during an earthquake, and is now in part a lake and in part a salt-water marsh.
North of the Runn, in the collectorato of Ahmadabad, are the Null and Bohe, two hollows some distance apart, containing salt water, which they receive from rivulets, but give off none.
The Rama extends from the Indus to the western confines of Gujerat, a distance of full 200 miles. In breadth, from the islands, it is about 35 miles, and, taking into consideration its different belts, its area, exclusive of the elevated tracts called Bunni and the islands, is about 7000 square miles; including BUD ni and the islands of Pacham, Khuren, etc., it is 9000 square miles. It is a dry, sandy flat, without herbage, and during a great part of the year a few tamarisk bushes alone are seen on it. Fresh water is only to be had on its islets. The mirage is there witnessed in all its surprising beauty. So long as the sun shines, the Rutin resembles a vast expanse of water, which only those accustomed to it can distinguish from the reality,. Its islands are Carir and Pacham. Bunui, south of Pacham, is a tract of grass land. Lieut. M13Iurdo, writing in 1815, and Lieut. Burnes, writing shortly aftersvards, pointed out that the Runn had formerly been an inland sea ; and about the middle of the 18th century a vessel was found at Wawania sunk 15 feet deep in the mud.
During the S.W. monsoon, water is driven up its eastern inlet from the Gulf of Cutch, and up the eastern branch of the Itidus, and covers its whole surface, augmented by the freshes which come dowu the Looui aud Balms rivers.
The Ruun of Cutch is called the Great Runn: The Small Runn conunenees near tho Great Runn in the N.E., and continues to the Gulf of Cambay, and in the N.W. a narrow Bunn separates the district of Oklunnandul from the rest of the peninsula of Kattyawar, connected only by a narrow bank of sand at 3ludhe.—Tod's Rajasthan Memoirs of Lieut. llrMurdo, 1815 ; Lieut. Burnes, 1827-28 ; Captain Grant, Geol. of Cutch ; Capt. G. Le Grand Jacob.