of physical geography with regard to those submarino forests, old lines of coast, and raised teaches, to which we have alluded. These remarkable memorials are, a link with some former physiography of the British Islands. They throw considerable light on the earlier terrestrial condition of our country, and they call attention to important changes which are surely and not slowly proceeding all around our coast to-day, and altering the physiography of our islands as it at present appears in our maps. That the face of the globe which is pictured in our ordinary atlases is gradually altering and merging itself into quite another and a different terraqueous arrangement is but too well known to those who go down to the sea in ships, and do business in great waters. Too often have the accurate and elaborate charts of one period proved useless, and even dangerous, for the navigators of the next. For general purposes, the ordinary atlases of to-day, which give the idea that land and sea remain unalterably the same, are perhaps sufficient; but for the practical purposes of the mariner, the variations in coast-lines and sea-depths which physical geography takes note of are all-important. Here are a few illustrations. avon of the departed coasts of Brittany, Normandy, and other parts of the western borders of France. From Cape Finisterre to St. Malo are scores of places where theso sunk forests are to be seen. These mysterious memorials enter largely into the traditions and superstitious of the people. One of the old and historical forests which has thus been brought beneath the sea (the forest of Sciey), was commemorated so early as the twelfth century by a troubadour of the period. The troubadour's lines have been translated thus: But that famous stretch of fertile land The ancient forest yields nought but fish." That a great forest should gradually disappear beneath the waves in the course of eight hundred years is easily credible when we learn, among other instances, that three whole parishes-St. Louis, Maunay, and Ln Feuillette-have been submerged by the sea since the thirteenth century. Shoals and rocks are found to be gradually rising year by year above the waves, and extending themselves until at length they form islands. Else- Again, beneath the waters in the Bay of Douarwhere the land is slowly sinking, and its wooded nenez, not far from the Channel Islands, are clearly shores are dipping down beneath the waves. Islands visible at low tide the remains of Druidical altars, are being removed farther from the adjoining main- portions of walls, and ruins of stone monuments. So land by the gradual widening of the strait between we might go on to illustrate the great changes in them, for the sea is encroaching as the land is sink-physical geography which have taken place on the ing. Mrs. Somerville long since pointed out how the coast of France within the historical period. Hebrides once formed part of the mainland of Scotland. More remarkable than the separation of the Hebrides from the mainland of Scotland, and more within the observation of the historian, has been the separation of the Channel Islands from the mainland of France. In this instance the phenomenon is so connected with the submergence of a large tract of forest and other land as to form an excellent illustration of the important physical changes which are gradually taking place around us, and superseding the maps of our ancestors. There is proof positive that in the sixth century the district of Jersey was separated from the mainland of France by only a narrow rivulet. This rivulet was bridged by a single plank, which the inhabitants were bound to keep in repair for the archdeacon of the mother church to pass over on his periodical visitation. This interesting fact in historical physical geography has been made known to us by the present Under-Prefect of Coutances, from researches in the monastic library of Mont Saint Michel, published in his little book called "The Movements of the Sea." Yet to-day the distance between Jersey and France is fourteen miles! Such is the breach which has been gradually widened and occupied by the sea since the sixth century. This remarkable isolation of Jersey from the mainland of France has been accompanied with such a progressive submergence year after year of the mainland itself, that the coast of to-day actually stands from six to twelve miles farther back than that which existed in the sixth century. To this extent, then, has the whole seaboard, with its ports, harbours, villages, and forests, been submerged and lost to the French territory. The result is seen to-day in vast tracts of submarine forests which now occupy the The English coast of the Channel, as well as the French, has its submerged forests and other memorials which tell us that the land in this area has sunk from its former level. A glance at the accompanying map will show that the English and French coasts are alike fringed with forests which pass down and disappear beneath the sea-bed. It should be well understood that these old sunk forests which fringe the shores of Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, and other seaboard counties, belong to an old and extensive land area which is now submerged beneath the sea, and not to any mere strip of coast. The case is thus stated by one who has given many years to the question of the former physical geography of the valley of the English Channel. On this subject, Mr. R. A. GodwinAusten, F.R.S., says:—— "It must not be assumed that the original position of these wooded tracts (now submerged) was close to any coast-line or sea-level. For such a supposition there seems to be no ground whatever. Proximity to the sea is generally unfavourable to the growth of timber. Yet in many instances the trees of these submerged lands had attained a very great size. 66 Again, the trees which have been identified from these submerged woods are the elm, cak, chestnut, and hazel, none of which have their usual habitat along the seaboard." Lastly, some of these submerged forests of our coast not only pass down under the sea-bed, but actually reappear almost in mid-channel. Such, then, is some of the evidence that the land which has gradually been lost to Britain by the encroachments of the sea was no mere strip of coast. On the contrary, it formed a large terrestrial inland area. These submerged forests, and similar memorials, enable us to-day to estimato the extent of that SUBMERGED FORESTS OF THE OLD LAND AREA, RISING UP AT THE COAST-LINE OF TO-DAY. The River-courses are prolonged from the Present to the Old Coast-line. The Figures show the Depths in Fathoms of the now Submerged Area. former land, and to produce a picture of the physical geography of early Britain. The English Channel of to-day, then, was once a dry, thickly-wooded inland valley, diversified with mountain, ravine, hill, and plain. This great inland valley was then the home and pasture-ground of huge land animals-mammoths and gigantic oxen and deer-which roamed at will from Ireland to the continent eastward. It was irrigated with fresh-water rivers, which travelled far westward before they reached the distant Atlantic coast-line of the period. Let us now turn from the English Channel and its former physical geography to the German Ocean. Here, too, some romantic but well-ascertained facts reveal to us a glimpse of Britain in the continental period of her history. The German Ocean, or North Sea, like the English Channel, was once an inland plain or valley raised far above the sea-level. The sea has but recently invaded this depressed plain, submerged its forests, and superseded its river-courses. The buried trees of its sunk forests are still standing rooted in their own vegetable soil, although beneath the waves. which is now submerged. Thus, too, physical geography teaches us that under such circumstances the present coast is the old coast cut farther back by the action of the sea and the weather. The most remarkable and famous of these ancient coast-lines of the British isles is shown in the accompanying map. Startling as it may appear, a glance will tell us that it once formed the western seaboard of the continent of Europe. It was first brought to the notice of geographers, and appreciated in all its significance, by Sir Henry De la Beche, more than forty years since, in a map which forms the basis of our own. It takes us back to the time when the European mainland, instead of terminating, as it does to-day, with the coasts of Norway and Franco, stretched far westward in one unbroken area, beyond the present coast of Ireland. These were the flourishing days of the forests of oak, chestnut, alder, and yew which are now submerged in the German Ocean and the English Channel. The map shows the British Isles and the adjacent sea-beds at that stage in the continental period of our country's physiography when the whole area was raised at least 600 feet above the sea level. At this Cromer Forest, which dips into the waters from the coast of Norfolk, is the most famous of the sub-elevation, and even higher, the land must have stood merged forests of the German Ocean. This ancient for a considerable time. At length it gradually woodland has been traced at low tide for more than descended into the sea, and so became separated forty miles. At certain seasons, and especially after from the continent. The evidence of this descent is great storms, the stumps of oak, alder, yew, and afforded by the present state of the sea bottom in Scotch fir are seen standing upright in the water. the area represented by the submerged forests and The condition of the wood and of the fir-cones (some by the old shores and sea-margins now found in deep of the latter obviously bitten by squirrels) tells us water, composed of beach-shingle and shells. More that the sinking of the land here occurred at no remarkable still, it is shown by the old river-beds of distant period in the physical history of our country. the period, some of which are traceable to-day from The remains of land animals, too, as well as of the their present mouths along the bottom of the sea to forests they inhabited, are discovered in the bed of their old mouths on the former coast-line. the German Ocean. In his "Physical Geography of Norfolk," Mr. Woodward tells us that in less than fifteen years the fishermen of the village of Happesburgh dredged up from their oyster-beds as many as two thousand teeth of mammoths. Bones and tusks of mammoths have also been fished up from these watery depths. Here is a singular instance. "In 1837 a fisherman, whilst trawling in midchannel between the two shoals, the Varn and the Ridge (covered at low tide with one hundred and twenty feet of water), suddenly encountered a heavy mass, which proved to consist of enormous bones; the net broke, but a fore-leg was secured; it proved to be that of a mammoth." Such occurrences, says Professor Owen, recall to mind the adventures of the fisherman narrated in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments;" but the fancy of the romancer falls far short of this hauling up in British seas of elephants more stupendous than those of Africa or Ceylon. Let us now turn from these submerged forests, and the mammoths which inhabited them, to consider those old coast-lines of the British Isles, which the mariner of to-day finds in deep water far in advance of the present seaboard. These old coast-lines, no less than the submerged forests, enable us to restore the picture of Britain in the continental period. In Keith Johnston's Physical Atlas of Natural Phenomena" (especially in the elaborate map of the British Isles which forms the frontispiece) some of these old and submarine coast-lines are delineated. They are seen ranging at successive distances from the present shores, with which, as might be expected, they run, for the most part, parallel. Thus they figure the former contour and extent of the land These old rivers are shown in the map as traversing the wooded plains and valleys which are now submerged by the salt waters of the English Channel and the German Ocean. They show the former prolongation of the rivers of to-day. The Rhine, the IIumber, the Severn, and the other rivers of this area, are thus seen carrying their waters to the fardistant coast-line. Physical geography is indebted to Mr. Godwin-Austen for tracing these rivers to their mouths in the ancient outlying sea. Mr. Austen calls special attention to the river in the English Channel, in the bed of which Captain White has recently discovered the shell of the fresh-water mussel (Unio pictorum) at the old embouchment of the river (close to the submerged coast-line) in from 300 to 600 feet of water. Such is the knowledge which is being gradually gained of the submerged land which lies around our island. The accompanying map, in which is pictured the former union of Britain and Ireland with the mainland of Europe, is referred to the time of the mammoth, or fleece-clad elephant, a creature which, from the abundance of its remains discovered to-day in the area represented, is looked upon as the most characteristic of the fauna of the period. A larger chart of the present beds of the British seas, and the ancient coast-line is supplied in the cheap and beautiful German map of the British Isles, drawn by Dr. Peterman, and published by Dr. Stieler in his Hand Atlas, the maps of which may be had separately. * See also a paper by Mr. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., in Hardwicke's "Popular Science Review" for October 1871. NOTES ON CASHMERE. BY MAJOR-GENERAL EDWARD LAKE, R. E., C.S.I. THE HE kingdom of Cashmere, as at present constituted, was a creation of the British Government. At the time of the first Sikh war, in 1845-46, it formed part of the Punjab; the hilly and mountainous portions being held by Rajah Goolab Sing, then a feudatory of the Punjab, and afterwards the first king of the newly-created principality, while the valley of Cashmere was held in farm by Nawab Emam-ood-deen, a Mohammedan in the service of the Sikh Government. The sovereign of the Punjab at that time was Maharajah Dhuleep Sing, but as he was a minor, there was a scramble for power amongst many rival claimants. After a fearful period of anarchy, during which one prime minister after another was killed, and Maharajah Dhuleep Sing (now a Christian prince living in England) saw his uncle butchered before his own eyes, the Sikh soldiers, like the Prætorian guards of old, became masters of the situation. One use they made of their power was to invade British territory, fully confident that they would drive the English beyond the sea. They displayed the greatest gallantry in four hardly-contested battles at Moodkee, Ferozshahr, Aleewal, and Sobraon, at one of which, Ferozshahr, British power seemed for a time to tremble in the balance. It pleased God, however, to allow the British to triumph, and the Sikhs were obliged to sue for terms. We have reason to think that at that time Lord Hardinge, the Governor-General of India, would have been disposed to annex the Punjab, if he could have occupied the country in proper force; but the European regiments then at his disposal had suffered very severely in the four battles which had been fought, so Lord Hardinge contented himself by demanding the cession of the Sikh territory east of the Sutledge and the Becas rivers, as well as the payment of a million and a half sterling to pay for the expenses of the war, which the Sikhs themselves had provoked by their unjustifiable invasion of British territory. The Lahore treasury was empty, and as there seemed no likelihood of the war indemnity being paid, the GovernorGeneral hinted that instead of the money he would find it necessary to take over Cashmere and the whole of the hill territory of the Punjab. It is unnecessary to enter into all the negotiations which followed; the result, however, was that Rajah Goolab Sing, who had begun life some years before as a horseman in the service of the Maharajah Runjeet Sing, became, in consideration of the payment of a million sterling, the first king of the newlyformed principality of Jummoo and Cashmere. This principality consists of three main territorial divisions, containing altogether a population of about a million and a half. There is first the mountainous region in the extreme north, on the borders of those independent States which intervene between British territory and the countries occupied by the Russians on one hand, and those tributary to the Chinese on the other. One of these independent States, usually spoken of as Eastern Turkistan, has recently been formed by shaking off the Chinese yoke, and is now governed by Åtalik Ghazi, a Mohammedan chief, who has won by the sword the position he now holds. Under his vigorous rule his State has acquired some importance, and, under the orders of the Government of India, an English embassy under Mr. Douglas Forsyth, c.B., has made its way to his capital at Yarkand, to reach which ten great mountain ridges have been passed, all at considerable altitudes. Thus the Karakoram Pass has an elevation averaging 17,000 or 18,000 feet above the sea, and here, for five or six days, travellers have to transport everything they need, neither fuel being procurable, nor fodder for baggage animals. The most important of the possessions of the Maharajah of Jummoo in this direction is the fertile valley of Ladakh, at an elevation of 12,000 feet above the sea. The people here are of the Tibetan race, and profess the Buddhist faith. Leh, the capital, is now the entrepôt of a considerable trade, in the interests of which an English official is now stationed there. The British representative for some time was Mr. Robert Shaw, the first Englishman to visit Yarkand, and whose book, entitled "High Tartary, Yarkand, and Kashgar," supplies much interesting information regarding those regions. Another well-defined territorial subdivision of the Jummoo principality are the highlands bordering on the plains of the Punjab, and situated between the Ravee and Jhelum rivers. Some passing allusion may be made to this tract, not only because it contains Jummoo, the capital of the newly-formed kingdom, but also because its past history throws some light upon the history of the present reigning family. When the Mohammedans made themselves masters of Hindostan, partly from political and partly from other considerations, they spared the Rajpoot chiefs, who, emigrating very long ago from Rajpootana, had carved out for themselves principalities in the highlands of the Punjab. They formed two great confederacies, eleven east of the Ravee, of which the Rajah of Kangra was the head, and eleven west of the Ravee, among whom the first rank was always accorded to the Rajah of Jummoo. Like their brethren in Rajpootana, these Hill Rajpoots were a fine, handsome, chivalrous, and soldier-like race, but unfortunately they were always engaged in border warfare one with the other. When, therefore, Maharajah Runjeet Sing rose to power, and determined to bring these highlands under his sway, he attacked the chiefs one after the other; and instead of their presenting a united front against him, each looked quietly on while his neighbour was being despoiled. One of the first to fall was the Rajah of Jummoo, whose lineal descendant is now a pensioner resident in British territory. But it so happened that while these conquests were being made, Maharajah Runjeet Sing's prime minister, in whom he placed the most implicit trust, and who became almost as powerful as himself, was Dhiyan Sing, an elder brother of Goolab Sing. They were Hill Rajpoots, belonging to a collateral branch of the Rajah of Jummoo's family, and they, with a third brother, Soochet Sing, managed to obtain, either in farm or on condition of service, the greater part of the hill region west of the Ravee. Further, these three brothers, as well as Heera Sing, the son of the |