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 216 THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAINS

opposite directions.” And besides this pressure, the effect of tangential stresses tending to compress the earth’s surface laterally and so form corrugations on it, there was from some remote internal cause this welling up from below of vast masses of granite which forced their way through the pre-existing rocks and formed the high peaks, the core of the Himalayan ranges.

These were the approximate causes—though the ultimate causes are not known—from which the Kashmir mountains originated. And tremendous though the forces must have been to cause such mighty effects, there is no evidence that they were violent. ‘The stupendous result may have been imperceptibly attained. If Nanga Parbat rose not more than one inch in a month, it would have taken only 26,600 years to rise from the sea-level, and this is but a moment in the vast epochs with which we aredealing. Nature has worked without haste and without violence. Slowly, relentlessly, and un- interruptedly her work has progressed till the great final result stands before us in all its impressive majesty.

Such was the origin and history of the Kashmir mountains. It remains to trace the course of life