442 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 28, 



the subject of the second part of this paper. Dr. Thompson and 

 Dr. Stoliczka have made in passing some close observations, which 

 I am glad to find my own agree with. Major Godwin- Austen has 

 contributed both to this Society and to the Asiatic Society of Bengal 

 much valuable informatiou as to the deposits, and has founded on it 

 important and, it seems to me, correct conclusions : these refer 

 mostly to the lacustrine deposits ; and on reaching that part of the 

 subject I shall refer to and make use of his writings. 



Though the country has thus been treated of and described by 

 others, it will not be amiss here to recall the chief geographical 

 characteristics of it. 



Beyond Kashmir proper, at the back of many ranges of moun- 

 tains, lie the countries of Gilgit, Baltistan, and Ladakh, all be- 

 longing to the drainage-basin of the Indus river, which flows through 

 or by them, from south-east to north-west, for a length of more 

 than 300 miles measured in a straight line, while the average 

 width of the district, at right angles to that, is 120 miles. The 

 elevation of the river itself is about 4200 feet at the lowest part of 

 this course, at the place called Bawanji ; at Skardu it is about 7500 

 feet ; opposite to Leh it is 10,500 feet ; and at the highest point of 

 its course visited by me, where it enters from the Chinese territory, 

 the elevation of the river-bed is 13,700. Of the tributaries that 

 will be mentioned the principal are the rivers of Astor, Gilgit, Dras, 

 and Zanskar, and the great river Shayok, running parallel for such 

 a long distance with the Indus, on the branches of which I have 

 made many observations. 



The country drained by all these may be described as a mass or, 

 perhaps better, as a reticulated mass of mountains ; the valleys and 

 ravines that penetrate them are almost everywhere narrow, an open- 

 ing of two or three miles in width being quite exceptional ; the few 

 larger flat spaces than that will be described in their turn. Of the 

 mountain-chains, while some have such an irregular, in-and-out 

 course as to defy description by words, and can only be understood 

 from a map, others have a very definite N.W. and S.E. direction. 

 The ordinary height of the ridges may be taken as 20,000 feet ; 

 some ranges have a rather higher and some a lower average eleva- 

 tion, while from most rise a few peaks of much greater height. 



The chain of mountains that has the greatest influence on the 

 climate and induces the Tibetan, or in the N.W. parts the semi- 

 Tibetan, character of it, is the one that may be described as running 

 from Nanga Parbat and from Deosai through a point between 

 Kashmir and Dras, and thence right away to the S.E. This 

 range intercepts nearly all the supply of moisture from the sea, and 

 causes Baltistan and Ladakh to be countries of extreme dryness : 

 rain is almost unknown there ; the hill-sides are bare, not only of 

 trees but of grass ; the rocks and the stony surface of the ground 

 are exposed in their nakedness. The rivers are supplied almost 

 entirely from snow, either from the snow-beds which melt away by 

 the end of summer, or from the more permanent snow and the 

 glaciers of those mountains that reach to the snow-limit, which itself 



