554 



IMBEDDING OF THE EEMAINS OF MAN AND [Ch. XLVII. 



Cashmere (or Kashmir) in India, situated at the southern foot 

 of the Himalaya range, is about 60 miles in length, and 20 

 in breadth, surrounded by mountains which rise abruptly 

 from the plain to the height of about 5,000 feet. In the 

 cliifs of the river Jelam and its tributaries, which traverse 

 this beautiful valley, strata consisting of fine cla}^, sand, soft 

 sandstone, pebbles, and conglomerate are exposed to view. 

 They contain freshwater shells, of the genera L 

 Paludina, and Cyrena, with landshells, all of recent species, 

 and are precisely such deposits as would be formed if the 

 whole valley were now converted into a great lake, and if the 

 numerous rivers and torrents descending from the surround- 

 ing mountains were allowed sufficient time to fill up the lake- 

 basin with fine sediment and gravel. Fragments of pottery 

 met with at the depth of 40 and 50 feet in this lacustrine 

 formation show that the upper part of it at least has accumu- 

 lated within the human epoch. 



mneus 



Thomson, who visited Cashmere 



m 



1848, 



observes that several of the lakes which still exist in the great 

 valley, such as that near the town of Cashmere, five miles in 

 diameter, and some others, are deeper than the adjoining 

 river-channels, and may have been formed by subsidence 



numer 



4 



region in the course of the last 2,000 years. It is also pro- 

 bable that the freshwater strata seen to extend far and wide 

 over the whole of Cashmere originated not in one continuous 

 sheet of water once occupying the entire valley, but in many 

 lakes of limited area, formed and filled in succession. Amongr 

 other i^roofs of such lake-basins of moderate dimensions 

 having once existed and having been converted into land at 

 different periods, Dr. Thomson mentions that the ruins of 

 Avantipura, not far from the modern village of that name, 

 stand on an older freshwater deposit at the base of the 

 mountains, and terminate abruptly towards the plain in a 

 straight line, such as admits of no other explanation than by 

 supposing that the advance of the town in that direction was 

 arrested by a lake, now drained or represented only by a 

 marsh. In that neighbourhood, as very generally throughout 

 Cashmere, the rivers run in channels or alluvial flats, bounded 



