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200 miles short of the actual length, which is a wonderful testimony to the accuracy of Greek research in ancient times.

The area comprised in this rhomboid omits Assam and Burma. An acute-angled triangle with a 300-mile base stretching up from the mouths of the Hoogly on the northeastern side of the rhomboid and its apex situated 550 miles to the north-east will include Assam; and an attenuated triangle stretching southward and eastward for 1250 miles (all by rail) with its apex within two degrees of Cape Comorin and its base on the south-eastern side of the Assam triangle will roughly include the province of Burma.

The area of India is nearly 1 million square miles. The following distances between some well-known points will give some idea of the size of the Continent. The distance from Bombay to Calcutta via Nagpur by railway is about 1200 miles. From Dehra Dun in the north, situated midway on the little plateau between the Himalaya and the Siwalik Range of hills, to Calcutta is 1000 miles; from Calcutta to Madras 1000 miles; and from Madras to Cape Comorin in the extreme southern extremity 500 miles. If we take a north and south line (as the crow flies) stretching from Kalka in the north, at the base of the Himalaya, from which the mountain railway ascends to Simla (about 70 miles), to Cape Comorin, and passing through Saugor and Hyderabad, the total length of the line is 1600 miles, the respective distances being, Kalka to Saugor 500 miles; Saugor to Hyderabad 450 miles; and Hyderabad to Cape Comorin 650 miles. From Umbala 40 miles to the south of Kalka, the distance by rail via Lahore to Attock in the extreme north-west is 430 miles.

It is the existence of the mighty mass of the Himalayan bulwark stretching across the north and blocking it off from Central Asia which has conserved to India its distinctive flora and fauna and has been a determining factor in the history of the country.

The following description of the physiography of India is from Holdich's India, The Regions of the World Series:

"To the north-east and north-west (the two northern sides of the rhomboid) are vast elevations of land surface from the foot of which the peninsula of India stretches away southwards in gradually ascending grades. To the north-east and north-west exist elevated regions of plateau and tableland buttressed by mountain systems which form the staircases

between the plains and the plateau. On the north-east the huge upheaval of Tibet rising to 16,000 feet above sea-level, shuts off the rest of Asia with an unpassable barrier of sterile and stony uplands bordered India-wards by a vast mountain region which comprises many complicated minor systems whose central peaks are the highest in the world. These are the Himalaya. From the western extremity of the central Tibetan upheaval, mountain ranges curving southwards determine the initial direction of the rivers of China, Siam, Burma and Assam, and round off the north-eastern borderland of India with a series of walls as impassable as the solid block of the Tibetan plateau. On the extreme north, abutting on the north-west of Kashmir, the Pamirs (well called the Roof of the World) flank the depression north of the Tibetan plateau westward, and mark the geographical centre from which spring the Kuen Lun, hedging in Tibet to the north; the Himalaya dividing Tibet from India; the Thian-shan, which are but the south-western links in the central orographical axis of Asia, which reaches north-east for 4600 miles to the Behring Straits, and the Hindu Kush, with its subsidiary ranges, forming the north-western barrier of India.”

The importance of this north-western barrier will be alluded to in connection with the ancient history of India.

"To the south of the region of mountains is the region of depression which lies at its south-eastern foot, curving northward across the breadth of the peninsula from the Bay of Bengal (on the east) to the Arabian Sea (on the west), and including all the most fertile and densely populated districts of Hindustan. This is the great silt-formed land of India, the land of great rivers which flow through the Himalaya and the western mountains, bringing the soil of Tibet, of Afghanistan and Baluchistan to fertilise the land and nourish the swarming populations of Bengal, the United Provinces, the Punjab and Sind. In this area of depression (never rising more than a few hundred feet above sea-level and often only a few inches above) we must include Assam, the valley of the Brahmaputra. It may be noted here that all the three great river systems of India-the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra-derive a part of their water supply from sources which lie in the highlands beyond the Himalaya and the western mountains, and part from the countless valleys which lie hidden within the mountain folds.

To the south of the area of depression succeeds the region

of southern tableland, or peninsular area, which includes the Central Provinces, Bombay, Madras, Mysore, Travancore and several other minor states and provinces. This threesided tract of territory, known to the ancients as the Dakshin (Deccan) or 'south land,' supports a population of about two-thirds the strength of the population of the depression, and is buttressed by the Vindhya Mountains on the north and by the Eastern and Western Gháts of the Madras and Arabian Sea coasts respectively; the two latter running to an angle near Cape Comorin.

Sweeping round the Island of Ceylon and the Coromandel Coast to the head of the Bay of Bengal, and then extending southwards embracing the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and stretching very nearly to Sumatra, is the 100-fathom line of sea bottom, extending from the shore for about fifty miles, with a fairly uniform contour of another fifty-mile interval, which represents the 500-fathom limit. Opposite the mouth of the Ganges these intervals are very much extended by deltaic influence. Inland from the coastline of Madras for a width of 50 to 100 miles, and reaching to the Gangetic delta, is a belt of shore formation of low elevation fringing the foot of the Eastern Gháts. The width of low foreshore on the western coast of India is very much less than that of the east, whilst the 100-fathom line reaches further out to sea, and the 500-fathom line is far enough seaward to include the Laccadive Islands.

South of the Himalaya India may be divided roughly into two parts: firstly, the area embraced by the great alluvial plains of the north, which include the Punjab, Rajputana and Sind on the north-west, the United Provinces in the centre and a great part of the Bengal province with the deltas of the Brahmaputra and the Ganges on the northeast; and secondly, the highlands of Central India and the low alluvial tracts of the south. The great northern area of low-lying plain reaches from the Himalaya to the Indian Ocean on the west, and to the Bay of Bengal on the east, and includes the main arteries of the great river systems of the Indus, the Ganges and the lower Brahmaputra. In Strachey's India we read: 'The Indo-Gangetic plain comprises the richest, the most fertile, the most populous, and historically the most famous countries of India. It covers more than 500,000 square miles, an area as large as France, the German and (late) Austrian Empires and Italy, and it contains 160 millions

of people. . . . The alluvial deposits of which it is composed are so comminuted that it is no exaggeration to say that it is possible to go from the Bay of Bengal up the Ganges, through the Punjab, and down the Indus again to the sea, over a distance of 2000 miles and more, without finding a pebble, however small.'

Differing widely in its physical characteristics from Northern India, the second great natural division comprises the provinces of Madras and Bombay, the Central Provinces and some of the chief native states of India in the centre and south. It is separated by no sharply defined line from the north, the plains of the northern states gradually rising in broken and irregular steps to the crest of the Vindhya and Satpura Mountains, and maintaining an average of 1500 feet south of the Nerbuda across the central tableland to Mysore, where it attains to 3000 feet or more. These central highlands, which include vast primeval forests covering rugged hill tracts intersected by wide valleys with gentle slopes, is depressed towards the east, and is bounded on either side by well-defined ridges of higher altitude, which appear as ranges when viewed from the sea, and follow approximately the line of coast curvature, leaving a broad strip of level coast between their lower spurs and the sea. These bounding edges of hill country are termed the Eastern and the Western Ghats respectively. The plateau slopes to the east and south-east, so that the Eastern Gháts are of no great altitude, being about 1000 feet above sea-level, and there is little or no fall from their crests westward, but the Western Ghats adopt the formation of a distinct anticlinal with more decision; and though irregularly piled together where they first commence to take shape south of the Nerbuda, they gradually consolidate and finally rise to an altitude of nearly 8000 feet in the south, where they culminate in the Sispára peaks of the Nilgiris. The deep blue tone assumed by these magnificent grass-covered hills, when the south-west monsoon sweeps across their crests and breaks on their western slopes, gives peculiar force to the nameNilgiris, or Blue Mountains. South of the Nilgiris the Western Gháts continue in the formation of a mountain range, receding, however, from the coast, and leaving the low level state of Travancore between themselves and the sea, until they terminate near Cape Comorin.

The Eastern Gháts commence to round off westward from a point not far north of Madras, and with broken

outline fall back from the coast until they merge into the southern buttresses of the Nilgiris, leaving the broad plains of the Carnatic to stretch almost unbroken to the Bay of Bengal. To the north of the line of the Western Ghats, but thrown back at an angle which gives them a north-easterly and southwesterly trend, is an isolated range, flanking the eastern deserts of Rajputana and dividing them from the native states of Central India, called the Aravalli Range, the primeval range of India. Mount Abu (the highest point of the range) is 5000 feet above sea-level, an altitude which ensures a climate suitable for the small hill-station which occupies the highest slopes and clusters round the ancient rock-cut temples, overlooking vast stretches of plain to east and west. The Aravalli is but the most southern link of a system in which straight rocky ridges, more or less isolated by stretches of intervening sand, follow the same strike and crop up in parallel lines of small elevation through the length of Eastern Rajputana. In general appearance this formation is that of a range, connected and continuous, but which has been overwhelmed by an encroaching sand sea. The flood of sand has filled up its valleys, and drifted in long, smooth slopes against its crest until it has left nothing but lines of narrow, jagged peaks to mark its position. The Vindhyas, the Aravalli Range, the Western Ghats and the Nilgiris, with the final southern extension culminating in the Anaimalai Hills, are the chief mountain masses of the Indian Peninsula south of the Himalaya. Hidden amongst them are many spots of rare beauty, many a group of magnificent peaks clothed with an infinite variety of forest vegetation, the recesses of which are known but to the district official, the Forest Officer, or the sportsman."

The river systems of India may be grouped as follows:(1) The Indus system on the north-west-Beas, Sutlej, Ravi, Jehlum, Chenab.

(2) The Ganges and Brahmaputra on the north-east. (3) The Nerbuda, Tapti, Són and Mahanadi in the central

group.

(4) The Godavari, Kistna, Cauvery and others in the southern system.

The geographical features of Assam and Burma now require a brief description.

On the north the valley of Assam lies under the eastern

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