ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

Extensively used throughout the district. Is generally cooked with Sál seeds. Price varies from 10 seers up to 8 maunds for one rupee.

Used in tarkáris, or vegetable curries.

Stamens and young pods occasionally eaten.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][merged small][merged small][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][graphic]

LEAVES.-continued.

Remarks.

Base of stem and young shoots are eaten. The native names given are those of the stem, not of the plant itself.

Interior of stem (sago.)

Leaf stalks. And underground stems.

Young shoots.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

These roots furnish considerable nutriment and are extensively used throughout the country.

These are capable of being ground up into a useful flour.

Kashmir, the Western Himalaya and the Afghan Mountains, a-
A Geological paper, by

Albert M. Verchere, Esq. M. D.
Bengal Medical Service, with a note on the fossils by

M. Edouard de Verneuil,

Membre de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris.

(Continued from page 50, of No. III. 1867.)

CHAPTER IV.-General Remarks, Geognostic History, and Conclusion. 81. In the preceding chapters I have often insisted on the parallelism of the several chains of the Himalaya; this parallelism is at once evident by reference to the map. Between the great parallels, we have seen that smaller, catenated chains make their appearance, filling up, as it were, with their spurs and branches, the great troughs formed by the principal parallel ridges. All the peaks and sinuosities of these catenated chains appear to present the same arrangement, viz. a highly crystalline and porphyritic variety of volcanic rock, passing gradually into others less crystalline, such as Trachyte, Felstone and Greenstone, and finally covered by ash, cinders, agglomerate, laterite, and compact azoic slate: these beds of ejecta, together with their interstratified layers of slate and sandstone, are all conformable to the fossiliferous strata by which they are covered, and have behaved like those at the final upheaval of the great system. But the more crystalline rocks, the several porphyries, the hornblende rocks, &c. do not appear to have been displaced laterally in any way to the same extent as the stratified layers; they rather seem to have been upheaved from underground as a solid mass, breaking through the beds of superficial trap and of volcanic ejecta. A similar disposition is likewise usual in granitic mountains, the granite supporting gneiss, schist, metamorphic slate and marble, and these being covered by fossiliferous rocks.

To explain the cause of this arrangement, let us consider what is the section of a volcano, as far as it is known at present from a study of active and extinct ones. We have under the surface of the country, in which the volcano occurs, enormous masses of trachyte, becoming more and more crystalline and prophyritic as we proceed deeper, and probably passing gradually into granite. In some

volcanoes this mass is perhaps upheaved during their activity, but what is upheaved above ground is certainly but a small proportion of what remains underneath. This mass is covered by the materials which have flowed out and have spread themselves on the surface, either under the sea or in the open air. A great deal of this fluid material does never reach the surface, but finds its way into the cracks and fissures of the trachyte and porphyry. The portion which flows on the surface, whether in the air or under water is a lava; on the top of and interbedded with the lavas, scoriæ, ashes, cinders, dust, broken rocks and mud, thrown into the air or into the sea by volcanic discharges, are arranged in gentle slopes on the sides of the volcanoes and in flat strata further off. Now, let us suppose that the volcanic activity becomes dormant or ceases: we shall have under the spot where the volcano once broke out, great masses of melted and metamorphosed matter solidifying into various sorts of trappean rocks, while on the surface, stratified and fossiliferous beds will be deposited on the top of the lava and ashes. Should then the whole district be submitted to an expansive force acting from within outwards, this force will be first and most intensely felt by the great mass of underground porphyry and trachyte, which will be forced up and break through whatever covers it; the beds of basalt and amygdaloid through which it is forced, will be displaced and thrown aside or on their flank, dragging with them the stratified beds of cinders and fossiliferous strata. If instead of one volcano, we have many, situated not very far apart, we shall have the superficial rocks thrown into endless confusion by the upheaval of the many masses of porphyry and trachyte, which once formed their bases. The surging up of these masses of crystalline rock will of course diminish very materially the space occupied by the lavas, the cinders and the fossiliferous rocks at the time of their deposition; and these have therefore no other alternative but to be broken in pieces, and these pieces to be raised more or less towards a vertical position, according to the quantity of rocks to be packed in a given space. Thus, for example, near the Kaj Nag range, we have vast deposits of felstone well hemmed in, on the south, by an enormous thickness of passive tertiaries. When the huge mass of porphyry of the centre of this system of mountains received its last upheaval, it took possession of a great extent of ground formerly

covered by the felstone; and this in its turn did its best to push the tertiaries further south, but this it only partially succeeded in doing; and as there was much felstone and little room for it, the bed broke into pieces and these pieces became packed edgeways.

82. Granite may be considered as the solidified matter of a volcano seated so far from the surface of the earth, that it never broke through its covering while the minerals were in a fluid or viscid state. It is the remains of a "blind volcano." Humboldt has described volcanic action, "the reaction of the interior of the earth on the external crust." This crust has to be broken through to allow of the escape of some of the internal matter; where the earth's crust resists the upward pressure, no crater is formed, no true volcano appears; but the melted matter remains imprisoned under the crust, and there gradually solidifies under great pressure. The solidification will necessarily be made more slow at a great depth, than it would be near the surface and near a rent which allows of the evaporation of the intermolecular water to take place; and it is the slowness of the cooling, the pressure sustained during the period of cooling, and the retention of intermolecular water and gases which cause the melted minerals to crystallise as granite and not as porphyry, greenstone or basalt.

83. In regard to their geographical disposition, volcanoes can be classified into "central" and "linear." The "central" are those which arise by themselves and appear not to be connected with any other volcano; the "linear" are several outlets arranged along a probable fissure in the earth's crust, and the fissure is often parallel to one or many other fissures similarly indicated by a line of volcanoes; or two fissures may cut one another obliquely, as we see in the Lipari Islands.

84. Applying the above general remarks to the volcanic rocks of Cashmir, we first notice that previous to the carboniferous epoch, there existed linear volcanoes arranged in a direction parallel to the present general direction of the Himalaya, viz. N. W. and S. E.; these volcanoes are now represented by the summits of Kaj-Nag and of the Kistwar and Badrawar and the peaks of the catenated chains of Cashmir. These volcanoes vary much in importance, but no doubt can be entertained of their general great activity, if we remember the enormous amount of ejecta which they have thrown out. The well

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »