92 Dr. Verchere on the Geology of Kashmir, [No. 2 



We must not forget that the fissures went through portions of the 

 crust, having a much greater power of resistance in some places than 

 in others, being here brittle, there tenacious, here rigid and there easily- 

 bent ; and we must not expect too much regularity in the fissures, 

 but be prepared for occasional deviations from the general direction. 

 The Miocene beds, which present the greatest uniformity of formation, 

 have everywhere the most regular strike, in spite of their numerous 

 foldings and faults ; the great beds of felstone are also tolerably 

 regular in their general dip, and so are the great beds of Carboniferous 

 limestone in Kashmir, though of course the smaller beds, especially 

 those close against high summits, have a local clip and strike. The 

 interminable masses of metamorphic schists, described by travellers in 

 several parts of the Himalayas, have also a steady N. E. dip, and 

 Captain R. Strachey tells us that in that portion of the Himalayas which 

 he examined, the N. E. dip was the general one. On the Afghan 

 side of the oblique anticlinal the Miocene again presents the greatest 

 regularity, and the Nummulitic formation nearly equals it ; the dip of 

 both these formations is very steadily towards the N. W. 



Another cause which has no doubt contributed to break the uni- 

 formity of the parallelism of the chains is the pressure, in some places, 

 of such enormous accumulations of volcanic porphyry as we see at the 

 Kaj-Nag and in Kistwar and Badrawar. These centres of volcanic 

 rock appear to have been very huge ; they were undoubtedly solidified 

 long before they became upheaved, as they were formed during the 

 Silurian epoch, and did not receive their upheaval until the Tertiary 

 period had been nearly run out. They were, therefore, raised up 

 bodily as solid masses, and they had been too huge to arrange themselves 

 in the general parallelism of the fissures. I have represented them in 

 the plate as huge centres of volcanic action, regarding them as too 

 enormous to be displaced by even the force which has uplifted the 

 great dome of the Afghan- Himalayan system ; they were merely 

 forced up. The Sufed Koh and the Koh-i-Baba in the Afghan moun- 

 tains occupy a similar position in relation to the parallel chains ; the 

 first named is probably a volcanic mass, and I have assumed that the 

 other is likewise a porphyry centre. It is probable that certain 

 granite masses have acted in a like manner ; but it would be of little 

 profit to speculate about those masses, knowing at present nothing 

 positive regarding them. 



