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 KASHMIR'S FIRST APPEARANCE 213

record has yet been traced took place at the close of the Jaunsar period. ‘The bosom of the earth heaved restlessly, and what had already been deposited in the depths of the sea now emerged above the surface. Volcanoes burst through the “crust, and the sedimentary deposits, hardened into rock, were covered with sheets of lava and volcanic ash, which now form the hills at the back of Srinagar, including the Takht-i-Suliman.

This was Kashmir’s first appearance—not, how- ever, in the form of a beautiful valley surrounded by forests and snow-capped mountains, but rather in the form of an archipelago of bare volcanic islands. And even these were not permanent, for a period of general subsidence followed and they slowly sank beneath the sea which was then probably connected with America.

During the Devonian period Kashmir was still submerged ; but in a subsequent portion of the time when the Carbonaceous system was being deposited there was a second period of great volcanic activity, when the southern portion of Kashmir again formed an archipelago of volcanic islands.

Eventually all Kashmir emerged, and became part of the mainland of India at that time joined

with Africa; so that Kashmir which had before 14a