the modern village of that name, stand on an older
freshwater deposit at the base of the mountains, and terminate abruptly
towards the plain in a straight line, such as admits of no other
explanation than by supposing that the advance of the town in that
direction was arrested by a lake, now drained or represented only by a
marsh. In that neighborhood, as very generally throughout Cashmere, the
rivers run in channels or alluvial flats, bounded by cliffs of
lacustrine strata, horizontally stratified, and these strata form low
table-lands from 20 to 50 feet high between the different watercourses.
On a table-land of this kind near Avantipura, portions of two buried
temples are seen, which have been partially explored by Major
Cunningham, who, in 1847, discovered that in one of the buildings a
magnificent colonnade of seventy-four pillars is preserved underground.
He exposed to view three of the pillars in a cavity still open. All the
architectural decorations below the level of the soil are as perfect and
fresh-looking as when first executed. The spacious quadrangle must have
been silted up gradually at first, for some unsightly alterations, not
in accordance with the general plan and style of architecture, were
detected, evidently of subsequent date, and such as could only have been
required when the water and sediment had already gained a certain height
in the interior of the temple.

This edifice is supposed to have been erected about the year 850 of our
era, and was certainly submerged before the year 1416, when the
Mahomedan king, Sikandar, called Butshikan or the idol-breaker,
destroyed all the images of Hindoo temples in Cashmere. Ferishta the
historian particularly alludes to Sikandar having demolished every
Cashmerian temple save one, dedicated to Mahadava, which escaped "in
consequence of its foundations being below the neighboring water." The
unharmed condition of the human-headed birds and other images in the
buried edifice near Avantipura leaves no doubt that they escaped the
fury of the iconoclast by being under water, and perhaps silted up
before the date of his conquest.[1095]

_Berkeley's arguments for the recent date of the creation of man._--I
cannot conclude this chapter without recalling to the reader's mind a
memorable passage written by Bishop Berkeley a century ago, in which he
inferred, on grounds which may be termed strictly geological, the recent
date of the creation of man. "To any one," says