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 226 THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAINS

plateaux of recent alluvial deposit called karewas, that the Kashmir valley must have been filled with a lake to some hundreds of feet higher than the present valley bottom. Where the Jhelum River at present escapes from the valley was then blocked up, and the whole valley filled with what‘ must have been the most lovely lake in the world —twice the length and three times the width of the Lake of Geneva, and completely encircled by snowy mountains as high and higher than Mont Blanc; while in the immediately following glacial period mighty glaciers came wending down the Sind, Lidar, and other valleys, even to the very edge of the water.

Whether man ever saw this lovely lake it is not yet possible to say. ‘The Glacial period com- menced rather more than a quarter of a million years ago, and it was about then that man first appeared, among other places, in the great river valleys of central and southern India, where the climate is not extreme, and wild fruits, berries, etc., were procurable at every season of the year. But when he spread up the valley of the Jhelum to Kashmir we have not yet the means of saying. What appear to be some remains of the handiwork of man were recently found by Mr. Radcliffe in a