1848.] Essay on the Avian Order of Architecture. 323 



accurate Moorcroft makes the shaft " seven yards in circumference." 

 My diameter of 6 feet 10 inches gives a circular girth of seven yards 

 and somewhat less than six inches. The true diameter may therefore 

 perhaps be only 6 feet 9 inches, which would give a circumference 

 of 7 yards and 2-j- inches; for Moorcroft' s measurement was the 

 aggregate of the 16 sides, which would of course be somewhat less 

 than the circumference of a circle of equal diameter. The difference 

 between our measurements is therefore almost too small to be worth 

 notice. 



3. — Moorcroft' s statement* that no other remains of sculpture were 

 discoverable in the immediate vicinity of this large fragment, shows 

 that he did not, on that occasion, make use of the same active research 

 as was his wont. For by cutting away the bushes behind the upper 

 part of the stone, I found two different portions of the heads of these 

 gigantic busts, of which unfortunately the more perfect one fell to pieces 

 in turning it over. The other fragment is that which I have inserted 

 as No. 3 of Plate VII. in the restored sketch of the pillar. The mouth 

 is ten inches long. The portion marked No. 2 in my sketch is conjec- 

 turally supplied from a large head which I found amongst the ruins of 

 Avantipura. As the treatment of the hair is similar to that observed 

 with the human-headed birds in all the temples of Kashmir, it is pro- 

 bable that my proposed restoration preserves the general style, although 

 perhaps not the actual details of the original. 



4. — The upper portion or great ling am No. 1, is situated at a few 

 hundred yards from the last, on the side of the sloping bank ; and on the 

 plain below is the fragment marked No. 5 in my Plate. This is called 

 baror, or the "cat," by the Kashmirians, from some fancied resemblance 

 to that animal. Vignef calls it a "large block on which are rudely 

 sculptured the knees and legs of a gigantic sitting figure." The knees 

 are certainly not visible now, and I fancy that Vigne must have been 

 mistaken in his supposition about them. 



5. — In restoring the different portions of this pillar to what would 

 appear to have been their original positions, I have been guided chiefly by 

 the identity in the dimensions and in the number of the polygonal faces 

 of the two principal fragments, and partly by the near positions which 



* Travels, v. 2— p. 241. 

 t Kashmir, vol. 2, p. 36. 



Y 2 



