218 THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAINS
in the next geological period—the Cambrian and Silurian, say between thirty and fifty million years ago—there is not indeed in the Kashmir rocks yet any sign of life, but in the neighbouring district of Spiti there has been found in corresponding rocks fossils of corals, trilobites, shell-fish, worms, brachiopods (lamp-shells), and gastropods.
When Kashmir made its first brief emergence from the waters, in an archipelago of voleanic islands, though there was life of low and simple kind in the sea, on land: there was none, and the islands must have been absolutely bare. Neither on hill-side nor on plain was there a speck of vegetation, not even the humblest moss or lichen, and not a sign of animal life. No bird or insect floated in the air. And over all there must have reigned a silence such as I remember in the Gobi Desert, and which was so felt that when after many weeks I arrived at an oasis, the twittering of the birds and the humming of the insects appeared as an incessant roar.
It does not, however, follow from its bareness that the scenery of this archipelago may not have been beautiful, for those who have frequently passed up the Gulf of Suez know that the early
