Abstract
OBSERVATIONS have been made by Mr. R. D. Oldham on the growth of sandhills, which threaten to cut off communication between the town of Karachi and the suburb of Clifton, two or three miles distant (Mem. Geol. Surv. India, xxxiv., part iii.). He traces out the growth of dunes from small oval patches of sand which begin to accumulate on irregular tracts of the stony surface, pointing out that even a slight accumulation may cause an upward bend of the air currents whereby a space of comparative calm is produced, and sand more readily comes to rest. In course of time the oval patches of sand are heaped up with a sharper slope to leeward, down which the sand grains fall. Here a hollow is produced by an eddy of the wind, and this eddy serves to maintain and increase a crescentic form with a crater-like opening. The principal winds at Clifton blow from W.S.W., and form the main features in the sandhills; but winds from the E.N.E. blow during the winter months, causing a reverse slope and a bank of sand to be formed near the summit of the long gentle slope which faces the W.S.W. winds. There is agood deal of scour of the original steep leeward slope, but no complete reversal of the shape of the sandhill.
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Geological Notes . Nature 69, 138–139 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/069138a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/069138a0