3 QO THE GREAT PLAIN OF NORTHERN INDIA. 



at openings on the edges of ravines and other places 

 which afford advantageous standpoints for obtaining 

 good views. 



Of the Indian plain itself which skirts the southern 

 edge of the Terai, in this chapter on great mountain 

 ranges, we need say but little, except this: that when 

 we come to regard this latter immense territory, as 

 we shall have to do in our next chapter, as a region 

 formed in some way by the deposit of water, grave 

 questions arise as to where all the material came from 

 to level off this enormous region, seeing that the great 

 plain of Northern India extends in an almost unbroken 

 surface across the whole of Northern Hindustan. Its 

 apparently absolutely flat character has thus far proved 

 somewhat of a geological puzzle to account for. It looks 

 as if it must have been deposited by the sea, and yet, as 

 we hope to show hereafter, this is highly improbable. 

 That being so, and if we reject that hypothesis, some 

 other agency must be sought for to explain, if that 

 be possible, how this gigantic area was levelled and 

 brought into its present flat and ocean like condition. 

 Careful examination of the land shows that it consists 

 of a vast " alluvial deposit of sandy clay, on the surface 

 of which nothing in the shape of a pebble can be 

 found, except in the immediate vicinity of the hills. " * 

 The stones, as we here see, remain near the mountains' 

 foot and the lighter stuff goes to form the plain. From 

 whence then were these enormous, incalculable amounts 

 of alluvial detritus derived, spread over 500,000 square 

 miles of superficial area ? Can it be that at some 

 distant epoch, other great mountain chains may have 

 been in existence, which time, fretting like a moth 



* Encycl. Brit., gth Edit., Vol. xi, p. 827 (Article "Himalaya"). 



