116 Mr. Verchere 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. E. 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 S. 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 volcanoes 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 Palaeozoic epoch, the volcanoes of 

 the Himalaya had an arrangement more or less linear, and that the 



