WH Chapter 4

chapter 4
EQUILIBRIUM AND UPHEAVAL
While we often assign metaphorical attributes of strength and fortitude to

mountains as well as longevity and even divine immortality, they are, in fact,
more fragile and less resilient than they appear. As D. N. Wadia and others
have observed, the paradox of mountains is that chey represent 'weaker
belts of the earth's crust' which are more susceptible to seismic activity.
Recurring earthquakes have shown how unstable the Himalaya can be, as
their moorings shift and buckle. Seemingly solid rock is shaken
Or rises and
subsides along fractured fault lines. But almost as dramatic as these periodic
anomalies that
and violent tremors are other, more subtle, distortions and
fundamental
reveal the impermanence of the mountains and raise larger,
questions about theorigins of the Himalaya.
launched,
In 1802, when the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India was
measuring and
East India Company surveyors began the laborious task of
Historian
mapping the subcontinent, through a process of triangulacion.
of How India was
John Keay, in his book The Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale
cartography was
Mapped and Everest was Named, describes how chis feat of
rods
accomplished. With theodolites, perambulators, spirit levels, measuring
and wove an intricate
and plane tables, the surveyors established benchnarks
southernmost tip of
web of measured lines and angles, stretching from che
'compass-wallahs', as they
India to the summits of the Himalaya. While chese
WILD HIMALAYA
32
were known in Anglo-Indian slang, worked their way up the peninsula,they

soon discovered that the pull of gravity exhibited puzzling inconsistencies,
which set their calculations awry and made them question the laws of physics.
up wil
Surprisingly, it was a man of faith rather than science who came
the answer. In 1854, Reverend J. H. Pratt, the archdeacon of Calcuta, put
forward the idea of 'mountain compensation'. In essence, he proposed thar
the enormous mass of a mountain range generates gravitational deviations.
at i
As Keay explains, the Survey of India tested Pratt's hypothesis
headquarters in Dehradun, which lies at the foot of the Central Himalaw
and at the northern end of the Great Arc. They conducted a variety
of experiments with plummet lines and pendulumns to
determine rhe
gravitational deflection caused by the presence of the mountains. Not all the
results confirmed the Archdeacon's prophetic pronouncements. Occasionally
even in the absence of mountains, the readings from the surveyor's instruments
were skewed and when the mass of the Himalaya was computed, the
projected angle of ´topographic deflection' did not correspond to their
apparent size and stature. But as the surveyors soon realized, the mountains
we see, like the tips of icebergs, are only the visible portions ofa much
larger mass suspended below. Out of Pratt's hypothesis came the concept
of isostasy, the state of equilibriumn that exists in the earth's crust, both the
protruding peaks overhead and the deep substratum that extends beneath.
Subsequent geodesic surveys have shown that the imposing magnitude
of the Himalayan chain sits atop immense foundations of both solid and
molten rock of varying densities.
Another anomaly that confounded geologists and surveyors was that
certain rock formations sometimes cause a compass needle to deviate from
pointing north. At first, this was blamed on lightning strikes, which can
alter the surface magnetism in stones. But the explanation did not satisty
most scientists who gradually realized that some stones retain an indelible
'memory' of their creation, specifically the position they once held in
relation to the polarity of the earth. This means that as the earth's crust
shifted and plates rearranged themselves, each layer of rock preserved an
innate sense of direction according to its origins.
Palaeomagnetism became a serious field of study in the early nineteenth
century, initiated primarily by the German scientist Alexander von Humboldt,
who persuaded the British East India Company to sponsor a Magie
Survey of India alongside the ongoing Great Trigonometrical Survey. The
Schlagintweit Brothers, Robert, Hermann and Adolph, were dispatcheo
on this mission. Much of their exploration took place in the Himalaya, a
EQUILIBRIUM AND UPHEAVAL 33
the way from Kanchenjunga in Sikkim to Nanga Parbat in Kashmir. From

the nineteenth into the twentieth century,
scientists continued to puzzle
over the magnetism of rocks, which ultimately supported the theory of
plate tectonics. It was only in 1906 that Motonori Matuyama and Bernard
Brunhes demonstrated that the earth's polarity had been reversed less than
800,000 years ago. The fact that different generations of rocks held onto
their originalorientation relative to the shifting surfaces of the globe, allowed
geologists to compile a more accurate timeline of the earth's formation.
Using new tools like magnetomneters,geologists were able to calculate the
age of different strata in the Himalaya, which had been shuffled through
tectonic upheaval.
The unsettling idea that various layers of Himalayan rock are pointing
us in opposite directions proves that these mountains are not as permanent
or immutable as they might seem, but formed out of geological migration.
The stratified fragments of the earth's crust that make up these tiered
ranges have wandered here from disparate parts of the globe and from
different epochs. The provenance of those tectonic journeys is locked into
the magnetic memory of stones, each of them a compass that directs us
towards continents that no longer exist.

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chapter 4

EQUILIBRIUM AND UPHEAVAL

While we often assign metaphorical attributes of strength and fortitude to

were known in Anglo-Indian slang, worked their way up the peninsula,they

the way from Kanchenjunga in Sikkim to Nanga Parbat in Kashmir. From

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