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 ’ AGE OF THE MOUNTAINS 411

the wreath of fiery mist now called the Earth; and we should have to trace that mist, cooling and consolidating, first to a molten mass with a plastic crust enveloped in a dense and watery atmosphere, and then to a hardened surface of dry land with cavities in which the ocean settled. But the story, as it is with more detailed accuracy known, commences at the time when a shallow sea covered central and northern India, and ex- tended over the site of the present Himalaya, including Kashmir and the region of the mighty peaks behind. ‘This, then, is the first essential fact to lay hold of, that at the commencement of the authentic history of Kashmir, the whole—vale and mountain peak alike—lay unborn beneath the sea. How long ago this was it is not possible to say within a million years or so. But this much may be said with certainty, that the period is to be reckoned not in thousands, nor yet in hundreds of thousands, but in millions of years. Geologists have names for different geological epochs, and do not usually speak of them by definite numbers of years, for there is still much controversy as to the precise length of time occupied by each. But to fix in the mind of the general reader a rough idea of the immense periods of time with which we are