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 •■•»Ddiftii 



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m the great 

 !Ve miles in 



adjoimn? 

 gnb'i'lence 



mlsedtht 



I 



tf 



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pontinnous 

 .;t in ma^J 



in. 







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iccnmo- ( 



Ch. XLYII.] 



HIS WORKS IN SUBxiQUEOUS STRxiTA. 



555 



by cliffs of lacustrine strata^ horizontally stratified, and these 

 strata form low table-lands from 20 to 50 feet high between 



a table-land of this 



the different watercourses. 



On 



kind 



near Avantipnra, portions of two buried temples are seen, 

 which have been partially explored by Major Cunningham, 

 who, in 1847, discovered that in one of the buildings a mag- 

 nificent colonnade of seventy-four pillars is preser^^ed under- 

 ground. He exposed to view three of the pillars in a cavity 

 still open. All the architectural decorations below the level 

 of the soil are as perfect and fresh-looking as when first 

 executed. The spacious quadrangle must have been silted 

 up gradually at first, for some unsightly alterations, not in 

 accordance with the g^eneral plan and style of architecture, 

 were detected, evidently of subsequent date, and such as could 

 only have been required when the water and sediment had 

 already gained a certain height in the interior of the temple. 

 This edifice is supposed to have been erected about the 

 year 850 of our era, and was certainly submerged before the 

 year 1416, when the Mahomedan king, Sikandar, called 



ima 



Hindoo 



temples in Cashmere. Ferishta the historian parti- 

 cularly alludes to • Sikandar having demolished every Cash- 

 merian temple save one, dedicated to Mahadeva, which 

 escaped ' in consequence of its foundations being below the 

 neighbouring water.' The unharmed condition of the 

 human-headed birds and other images in the buried edifice 

 near Avantipura leave no doubt that they escaped the {nrj 

 of the iconoclast by being under water, and perhaps silted up 

 before the date of his conquest."^ 



MODERN ORIGIN OP MAN AS INFERRED FROM GEOLOGICAL 



EVIDENCE. 



w 



Bishop Berheley on the recent date of the creation of man. 

 Bishop Berkeley, in a memorable passage written more than 

 a century ago, inferred, on grounds which may be termed 

 strictly geological, the recent date of the creation of man. 



* Thomson's Western Hinialaj^a and 

 Thibet, p. 292. London, 1852. Cun- 



ningham, voL xvii. Journ. Asiat. Soe. 

 Bengal, pp. 241, 277. 



