British Burma and its people: being sketches of native ... - Khamkoo

CH. I. Physical Geography.
1
sinuous and somewhat indented outline to Kyketo
and thence to Martaban.
At the time of its formation
the waters of the Gulf of Martaban stretched
up what now forms the Irrawaddy, Sittoung, and
Salween Valleys. The coarse gravels which underlie
the clay towards the frontier in the upper portion of
the delta (above Prome) are clearly of marine
origin.'
Thus the scientific conclusions drawn from the
present geological features of the country concur
with native tradition and history in pointing to a
time when the great plains of Pegu and Sittoung to
Martaban were stUl submerged beneath the waters
of the Gulf of Martaban, which at that time extended
far inland, even above the latitude of Prome, and
formed deep estuaries between the three great
mountain ranges.
But it may be said that the phenomena here
presented are not unique, and that the upraising
and extension of low coast lines is
going on at present
in many other parts of the world. This is true ;
but perhaps no other locality
shows this process in
operation on so recent, so extensive, and so rapid a
scale.
An old phoonygee of my acquaintance, about
eighty years of age, remembers, when a lad, the whole
of the plain south of Kyketo about fifteen miles from