Richard Dixon Oldham

Richard Dixon Oldham FRS (31 July 1858 – 15 July 1936) was a British geologist who made the first clear identification of the separate arrivals of P-waves, S-waves and surface waves on seismograms and the first clear evidence that the Earth has a central core.

Quotes

• The ‘Lost River of the Indian Desert was none other than the Sutlej, and that it was “lost” when the river turned westwards to join the Bias [Beas]’... ‘It may have been . . . that the Jumna [Yamunā], after leaving the hills, divided its waters . . . and that the portion which flowed to the Punjab was known as the Saraswati while that which joined the Ganges was called the Yamuna.’... (that double desertion of the Sarasvatī, by the Sutlej and the Yamunā, which brought about) ‘a considerable change in the hydrography of the region’... ‘a tradition prevalent, on the borders of Bikaner, to the effect that the waters of the Hakra spread out in a great lake at a place called Kak, south of the Mer country’.
  • Oldham, R.D., ‘On Probable Changes in the Geography of the Punjab and Its Rivers: An Historico-Geographical Study’, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 55, 1886, pp. 322-43. (Oldham’s paper is partly reproduced in Vedic Sarasvatī pp. 81-88.) as quoted in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.