The Tethys vanished to return no more.  It survives in the Mediterranean of today.  The mountain-building movements continued into Pliocene times.  The Nummulite beds of the Eocene were, as the result, ultimately uplifted 18,500 feet over sea level, a total uplift of not less than 20,000 feet.

Thus with many vicissitudes, involving intervals of volcanic activity, local uplifting, and extensive local denudation, the Himalaya, which had originated in the sediments of the ancient Purana sea, far back in pre-Cambrian times, and which had developed potentially in a long sequence of deposits collecting almost continuously throughout the whole of geological time, finally took their place high in the heavens, where only the winds—­faint at such altitudes—­and the lights of heaven can visit their eternal snows.[1]

In this great history it is significant that the longest continuous series of sedimentary deposits which the world has known has become transfigured into the loftiest elevation upon its surface.

[1] See A Sketch of the Geography and Geology of the Himalaya Mountains and Tibet.  By Colonel S. G. Burrard, R.E., F.R.S., and H. H. Hayden, F.G.S., Part IV.  Calcutta, 1908.

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The diagrammatic sections of the Himalaya accompanying this brief description arc taken from the monograph of Burrard and Hayden (loc. cit.) on the Himalaya.  Looking at the sections we see that some of the loftiest summits are sculptured in granite and other crystalline rocks.  The appearance of these materials at the surface indicates the removal by denudation and the extreme metamorphism of much sedimentary deposit.  The crystalline rocks, indeed, penetrate some of the oldest rocks in the world.  They appear in contact with Archaean, Algonkian or early Palaeozoic rocks.  A study of the sections reveals not only the severe earth movements, but also the immense amount of sedimentary deposits involved in the genesis of these alps.  It will be noted that the vertical scale is not exaggerated relatively to the horizontal.[1] Although there is no evidence of mountain building

[1] To those unacquainted with the terminology of Indian geology the following list of approximate equivalents in time will be of use

Ngari Khorsum Beds — Pleistocene. 
Siwalik Series — Miocene and Pliocene. 
Sirmur Series — Oligocene. 
Kampa System — Eocene and Cretaceous. 
Lilang System — Triassic. 
Kuling System — Permian. 
Gondwana System — Carboniferous. 
Kenawar System — Carboniferous and Devonian
Muth System — Silurian. 
Haimanta System — Mid. and Lower Cambrian. 
Purana Group — Algonkian. 
Vaikrita System — Archaean. 
Daling Series — Archaean.

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on a large scale in the Himalayan area till the Tertiary upheaval, it is, in the majority of cases, literally correct to speak of the mountains as having their generations like organic beings, and passing through all the stages of birth, life, death and reproduction.  The Alps, the Jura, the Pyrenees, the Andes, have been remade more than once in the course of geological time, the debris of a worn-out range being again uplifted in succeeding ages.