H. H. Howorth — Rapid Elevation of Himalayas. 295 



as emphatic as Mr. Campbell. Lastly, it is true I have not myself 

 been there, but I have seen many photographs, and many drawings, 

 and notably the magnificent drawings of the Himalayan scenery by 

 Colonel Trotter, which show the contour and structure of the valleys 

 so admirably. These were exhibited only a few days ago at the 

 Geographical Society, and I was struck, as other people were, by 

 the angular, sharp, crisp outlines of the rocks and the absence of the 

 peculiar curves that denote glacier action, and this not merely on 

 the watersheds, but in the valleys themselves. The drawings, be it 

 remarked, represented nearly the whole length of the chain. 



I must not be misunderstood. 1 did not say in my paper that 

 there are not traces of the glaciers having once extended further. 

 I said very plainly indeed that there are such traces. Sir J. Hooker 

 and Mr. Blanford proved this long ago. The Himalaya glaciers 

 seem to me like glaciers in other parts to have shrunk considerably. 

 What I do maintain is that these traces are only found when we have 

 mounted the valleys several thousand feet, and that they are quite 

 incommensurate in size and importance with the vast glacial debris 

 and phenomena which should be found on the flanks and in the 

 neighbourhood of these gigantic mountain buttresses if during the so- 

 called glacial age they had formed the feature in the landscape which 

 they do now. As gathering ground for ice at a time when Central 

 Asia was occupied by water instead of being an arid plain, they are 

 incomparably great, when contrasted with the Dovre Fjelds which shed 

 their debris as far as the Carpathians, Central Russia, and Norfolk ; 

 or the Alps whose debris occurs down the Rhone valley as far as 

 Lyons, and if they had existed in the so-called Glacial age we ought 

 to find the great Indian plain strewn widely with unmistakable 

 debris, instead of having to painfully search for it until we reach 

 a height of 7000 or 8000 feet. I must, therefore, claim Mi*. 

 Blanford as supporting my conclusion rather than criticizing it. 

 In regard to the main question, an important witness is Mr. Blanford 

 himself. Let me quote testimony for which he was responsible 

 when he was in the very thick of his geological labours in India, 

 and long before he had largely forsaken the happy hunting grounds 

 of Geology for those of Zoology. 



On page Ivi of the introduction to the Manual of Indian Geology, 

 in discussing the origin of the Himalayas, we read, " The whole of 

 the gigantic forces, to which the contortion and folding of the 

 Himalayas and the other extra peninsular mountains are due, must 

 have been exercised in the interval which has elapsed since Eocene 

 times. . . . The direction of the Himalayan ranges is clearly due to 

 post-Eocene disturbance. It will be shown, in the chapters relating 

 to sub-Himalayan rocks, that the movement has been distributed 

 over the Tertiary and post-Tertiary period ; and a great portion of 

 it is of post-Pliocene date" Again, "As it is certain that a great 

 portion of the disturbances affecting the Himalayan strata are of 

 Pliocene or post-Pliocene date, it is reasonable to conclude that 

 at the close of the Miocene epoch no such mountain barrier as exists at 

 present separated the Indian peninsula from Central Asia. There is 



