i16 Mr. Verchére on the Geology of Kashmir, [No. 2, 
chain becomes blended with the first one I have indicated. Ten miles 
again to the north-east of the series of peaks just enumerated, is 
another chain of detached peaks or centres of mountains, arranged. 
along a line parallel to the two others and to the general direction 
of the Himalaya. From the S. H. to the N. W. we have the follow- 
ing summits or centres of mountains: the Rajdain (15,389), the 
Gwasbrari (17,839) the Harbagwan (16,055), the Basmai (15,652), 
the Kotwul (14,271), the Haramook (16,903) and the numerous 
peaks which, with their complicated spurs, separate the valley of 
Kashmir from Gurais and Tillail. 
Between all these catenated chains, connecting spurs or branches 
are to be seen spreading in all directions, and it is extremely difficult 
to give the direction of the resulting masses of mountains. But the 
geology of these mountains will help us a good deal to understand 
their topographical grouping. As we see these mountains on the map, 
we should be disposed to consider them as long spurs of the Mer and 
Ser chain descending towards the 8. W.; but we shall see that all, 
or at least most of these summits, are composed in their centre of 
rocks which have once been in a fluid or viscid condition, that is of 
porphyry, greenstone, basalt and amygdaloid; that these melted 
rocks are covered by enormously thick layers of ash, agglomerate 
and slate interbedded, and that on the top of these beds of ejecta 
fossiliferous strata rest quite conformably. It becomes therefore 
evident, that the summits represent separate and isolated centres 
of volcanic action, no doubt much displaced by the last upheaval of 
the Himalaya, but yet preserving their relations to the beds of ejecta 
which were collected around their feet and on their slopes. We have 
therefore a linear arrangement of volcanoes, or at any rate of volcanic 
fused matter, (for some of the collections of melted minerals may not 
have reached the surface and never had a vent), this linear arrange- 
ment forming three parallel lines, and these lines being parallel to the 
general N. W.—S. E. direction of the Himalaya. I believe that 
similar lines of voleanoes or collections of volcanic matter are to 
be found between several of the great parallel chains of the Himalaya, 
but whether they are thus general or not, the ones in Kashmir are 
sufficient to prove that during the Paleozoic epoch, the volcanoes of 
the Himalaya had an arrangement more or less linear, and that the 
