160 Henry H. Howorth — Elevation of Eastern Asia. 



speaking of the Siwaliks, he says, " Even their topmost beds are 

 contorted and crushed in every conceivable manner, indicating the 

 lateness of the period down to which the upheaval of the Himalaya 

 has extended " (Records Geol. Survey of India, vol. ix. p. 100). 



But we have evidence which is still more striking, and which 

 seems to me to point conclusively not only to the upheaval having 

 been recent but rapid. 



Buckland, in his Eeliquia9 Diluvianee, speaks of certain bones 

 of Horses and Deer procured by Captain Webb from the Chinese 

 Tartars of Daba, who assured him that they were found on the north 

 face of the snowy ridge of Kylas, in lat. 32°, at a spot which Webb 

 calculates to be not less than 16,000 feet above the sea-level. They 

 are only obtained with the masses which fall with avalanches from 

 the region of perpetual snow, and are said by the natives to have 

 fallen from the clouds and to be the bones of genii. Their medullary 

 cavities and cancelli were lined or entirely filled with white crystal- 

 line carbonate of lime, beautifully transparent, the bone being white 

 and very absorbent to the tongue. With them were found the bones 

 of Bears. The discovery of these bones in such a situation, amidst 

 pei'petual snow, and quite out of the habitat of Deer and Horses, 

 naturally attracted Buckland's notice. He urged that they are 

 carcases of animals drifted to their present position by diluvial 

 waters (Rel. Dil. pp. 222-223). They seem to me to evidence very 

 plainly the fact that the Himalayas have been very greatly elevated 

 since the bones were deposited. 



The instance quoted by Buckland does not stand alone. Strachey 

 called attention in the seventh volume of the Journal of the 

 Geological Society to the presence on the very high land forming 

 the watershed between the upper streams of the Ganges and the 

 Sutlej, at a height of from 4200 to 4800 metres above the sea, 

 of beds of sand, gravel, etc., containing a multitude of bones of 

 Horse, Ox, Deer, Rhinoceros, Elephant, etc. Writing quite recently 

 he says of these remains, " The existence of the animals in the 

 present condition of these regions would be wholly impossible ; so 

 that there is no room to doubt that these deposits have been raised 

 from a comparatively low level to their existing great elevation of 

 upwards of 15,000 feet, since they were laid out " (Ency. Brit. vol. 

 xi. p. 828). 



Again, Dr. Falconer, speaking of the Steppe of Hioondes between 

 the Himalayas and the Kailasa range, which is 15,000 feet above 

 the sea-level, says : " The tract in the emphatic language of Batten 

 is shrubless and treeless, a vast waste supporting a few furze bushes 

 and a sprinkling of the most Alpine vegetation ; and the climate is 

 one of polar severity." On this steppe remains of fossil animals 

 have occurred, and notably of the Rhinoceros, and Dr. Falconer 

 observes : " It is very certain that no Rhinoceros of the present time 

 could exist for a day in such a habitat ; and if we suppose the 

 Tibetan sj^ecies to have been clothed with a dense fur like the 

 Siberian species, the carcase of which w^as brought to Pallas from 

 latitude 64° on the banks of the Lena, still the tract could never 



