Br. W. T. Blanford — Age of the Himalayas. 373 



it in this form : because the glaciers of the Alps in Pleistocene 

 times extended some distance beyond the base of the mountains, 

 those of the Himalayas, if they existed, should have done the same. 

 Surely no one can contend that the glaciers of the Alps must descend 

 to the sea-level at the present day because those of Greenland do so. 

 But the difference in latitude between the Himalayas and the Alps 

 is practically the same as that between the Alps and Greenland. 



But, Mr. Howorth urges, there was a great sea in Central Asia 

 in Pleistocene times, and consequently Himalayan ice would have 

 transported glacial debris beyond the mountains. I dispute both the 

 fact and the inference. Even if thei'e was a greater ice-accumu- 

 lation (and I think I have shown that there was), it does not at all 

 follow that this would have reached plains, but little above the sea, 

 within from 26 to 34 degrees of the Equator. With regard to tha 

 Central Asiatic sea, of course there was a considerable tract covered 

 with water in late Tertiary and probably in Pleistocene times in tbe 

 Caspian and Aral area. But this area was I believe then, as it is 

 now, cut off from Tibet and the Himalayas by the great ranges 

 extending from the Pamir through the Thian-Shan to the Altai, and 

 surrounding Eastern Turkestan on the West and North. As to 

 great lakes having occupied the depressions of Eastern Turkestan, 

 the Gobi, etc., I can only say that I once mistook similar plains iu 

 Persia for lake-basins, and have seen reason 'to believe I was in 

 error. The occurrence of salt lakes and salt plains merely indicates 

 the absence of drainage, and is by itself no proof of the former 

 occupation of any area by the sea. The horizontal or nearly 

 horizontal beds supposed by many observers to be marine oi' 

 lacustrine are probably similar to those found throughout the drier 

 regions of Central Asia, and due purely to the wash of detritus from 

 the hills into the plains by rain and melting snow, where the whole 

 rainfall is insufiScient to form rivers and to wash away the accumu- 

 lations, all the water evaporating within the plains themselves. 

 With, the coarser beds fine Eolian deposits are associated. I do not 

 wish to appear dogmatic, but after having had better opportunities 

 than fall to the lot of most European geologists of studying the 

 subject, I am unable to attach any value to the evidence brought 

 forward, although I fully acknowledge how strong that evidence 

 appears at first sight by admitting that I was at one time led away 

 by it. 



Of the two quotations from my contributions to the Manual of 

 Indian Geology that are adduced as supporting Mr. Ho worth's 

 views, the first, and the first part of the second, do not appear \6 

 me at all favourable to his theory. Surely, to say that "a move- 

 ment has been distributed over the Tertiary and post-Tertiary 

 period, and a great portion is of post-Pliocene date," is not the same 

 as to say that the whole movement, or even the greater part of the 

 movement, is post- Pliocene ; nor is the argument that "at the close 

 of the Miocene period no such mountain barrier as exists at present 

 separated the Indian Peninsula from Central Asia " equivalent to 

 saying that the barrier was wanting at the close of the Pliocene. 



