Reviews—Lydekker’s Geology of Kashmir. 469 
upper valley then flowed in the opposite direction to its present 
one (p. 30). 
The present distribution of Glaciers in the Kashmir and Chamba 
territories is admirably displayed in the larger map accompanying 
Mr. Drew’s work. It will be seen from that map that with the 
exception of a few small ones to the south of the Chindb in Chamba, 
there are no glaciers south of the Zanskaér range; where it becomes 
lower, glaciers are absent, reappearing again on the same line in the 
high regions about the peak of Nanga-Parbat. One of the glaciers at 
the foot of that mountain, near the village of Tarshing, descends to 
a level which is estimated at 9400 feet, the lowest level of any 
Himalayan glacier. To the north of the great Zanskar range, 
glaciers do not occur in any force till the Mustagh or Karakoram 
range is reached, which forms the watershed between the Indus and 
the Turkestan river-systems. The most southern of this stupendous 
mountain barrier, which contains the second highest known peak 
in the world (28,000 feet), is covered with a complete network of 
glaciers, some of which (the Biafo and Braldu glaciers) are only 
exceeded in size by the great Humboldt glacier of Greenland. The 
lowest limit to which these glaciers reach seems to be about 10,000 
feet above the sea-level, and in contrast to other parts of Kashmir 
territory, they descend quite into the cultivated ground, their ter- 
minal moraines being frequently covered with a thick growth of 
cypress (p. 382). 
‘There appears to be but little evidence of recent volcanic dis- 
turbance in this area. 
The late Dr. Hugh Falconer mentions a very singular instance of 
a remnant of old volcanic energy still existing in Kashmir which he 
had examined: A tract of alluvium, with the strata elevated at a 
slight angle, and torrefied up to the surface to the condition of a 
well-burnt brick, there had been no outpouring of lava, and the 
tract was very circumscribed. In 1804 the ground was so hot that 
the Hindoos of Kashmir, simply by digging a few inches, were 
enabled to boil rice by the heat of the subsoil. There must have 
been a layer of incandescent matter beneath ; but strange to say, it 
nowhere reached the surface. Mr. Lydekker believes, from the men- 
tion of inclined alluvial strata in the above record, that the locality 
alluded to must be somewhere along the fringe of the Pir-Panjal 
range, although he was unable to identify the exact spot (p. 45). 
The older Mohammedan historians mention that Kashmir was 
formerly very frequently visited by severe earthquakes, the effect of 
which is abundantly manifest in the shattered condition of many of 
the old Buddhist temples, like that of Martand, near Islamabad. 
Earthquakes appear to be much rarer at the present day, the writer 
never having felt or heard of one during the eight years in which 
he knew the country ' (p. 40). 
1 Severe earthquakes are recorded in the years 1552, 1669, 1780, and 1828; by 
this last it is stated that about 1200 houses were thrown down and 1000 persons 
killed, ; 
