OP CREATION. 331 



Thus, then, it would appear that the elevatory 

 movement has here acted at several places along a 

 band extending for about eight thousand miles, with a 

 breadth of nearly five hundred miles, and running 

 nearly east and west. There is good reason to sup- 

 pose that the whole of this tract, without exception, 

 was under water at the commencement of the secon- 

 dary period, for we find beds of lias and various other 

 secondary deposits not only in the Alps and the Cau- 

 casus, but also in the western extremity of the Hima- 

 layas. The disturbance to whose action are due 

 these two principal ranges of mountain country in the 

 eastern hemisphere, was thus a recent occurrence, 

 geologically speaking; and there is ground for sup- 

 posing that the Carpathians and the Caucasus, which 

 are intermediate ranges between the Alps and the Hi- 

 malayas, became mountains at even a later date than 

 the Alps. 



But the study of Indian geology points still further, 

 and teaches us that the Himalayan movement con- 

 tinued to a very recent period, for we find in the 

 lower ranges on the flanks of this great chain a 

 singular development of upraised and tertiary beds, 

 apparently of various dates. We find, moreover, 

 that the great tracts of country overspread by basalt, 

 and appearing to have been only recently elevated, 

 are really of very modern date, and were most likely 

 among the results produced by that vast subter- 

 ranean action, of which the forcing up, to the height 

 of twenty-five thousand feet, the granite peaks of the 

 mountain chain of central Asia was a direct and 

 striking effect. 



The chief localities in Asia which offer distinct and 



