55 2 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 4, 1 88; 



SECTION E 



GEOGRAPHY 



Opening Address by Lieut.-Colonel H. H. Godwin- 

 Austen, F.R.S., F.G.S., F.R.G.S., &c, President 

 of the Section. 



My predecessor, Sir Richard Temple, selected for the subject 

 of his address to this Section last year " The Central Plateau of 

 Asia," and he treated it not only from a broad and general geo- 

 graphical, but also, and to some extent, a political and historical, 

 point of view. Following him, in a measure, over some of the 

 same ground, I have selected the mountain region south of the 

 Central Asian highlands — viz. the Himalayas, and more par- 

 ticularly the western portion of that tange, as the subject of this 

 paper. I propose considering this mountain chain with reference 

 to its physical features, past and present ; and consequently with 

 reference to its geological history, so far as that relates to later 

 tertiary times — i.e. the period immediately preceding the present 

 distribution of seas, land, rivers, and lakes. It is not, however, 

 my intention to enter very deeply into the purely geological 

 branch of the subject. 



Comparatively little of the earth's surface now remains unex- 

 plored, but much remains to be surveyed and examined in a 

 more scientific manner. Within the last fifty years explorers 

 have made known to us the general features of those dotted or 

 blank spaces which, as boys, we used to look at in our school 

 atlas sheets with so much curiosity, mingled with no little desire 

 to discover the hidden secrets of the unknown lands so shown. 

 The student of the present day enjoys information more or less 

 accurate respecting countries which to us were mere speculative 

 shadows. 



But there are other atlas sheets beneath, and only a very few 

 feet beneath, those of this present day, which are closely con- 

 nected with the latter, and beneath them again others lie still 

 deeper which have modified the geography of this earth over 

 and over again. It is to such a sheet or two relating to the 

 great Himalayan chain that I now invite your attention. If we 

 wish to deal with physical geography (and to my mind it has 

 equal charms with either pare geography or exploration), our 

 inquiry must, if we wish it to be of any really scientific value, 

 be based on geological structure. We must study the ancient 

 atlas sheets, one by one, which nature is, day by day, revealing 

 to us by the denudation of the present surface, taking away and 

 building up the material for atlas sheets of future epochs. 

 Geography and geology are very intimately related ; each is 

 truly based upon the other. Local changes of temperature on 

 the surface of this earth, and internally the slow shrinking of 

 its crust, have effected gigantic changes of its surface, and are 

 still altering the topographical features of every country. 

 Directly we look back in time and space and note what changes 

 have taken place, the science of geology steps in, and with it 

 mathematics, chemistry, botany, and zoology. A raised sea- 

 beach with its dead shells, or a submerged fore r t with the 

 remains of its former fauna and flora, geologically an event of 

 yesterday, sends us back thousands of years into the past, 

 thinking of what were the aspect and dimensions of the former 

 land ; therefore, to be a good geographer, something should be 

 known of geology and its kindred sciences. This will be my 

 excuse if in this address I dip somewhat below the surface, and, 

 as some may think, introduce too much geology into this Sec- 

 tion. The basis, however, of this branch of knowledge is geo- 

 graphy, and this the Royal Geographical Society and the British 

 Association in this particular Section do all they can to foster. 

 There is no gainsaying the fact that very many of our ablest 

 men of science, the ablest naturalists and geologists this country 

 has produced (and it has taken a leading part in geology), have 

 commenced their careers in connection with geographical ex- 

 ploration. Darwin's earlier studies were prosecuted whilst he 

 was attached to marine surveys in other parts of the world ; 

 through the same school passed Huxley and Edward Forbes. 

 There was no better example of an able geographer and geolo- 

 gist than Sir Roderick Murchison, who for years took a leading 

 part at these meetings. The list might be largely extended — 

 Sir Joseph Hooker, Wallace, Wyville Thomson, Moseley, Xc. 

 That most seductive of all studies, the geographical distribution 

 of species, is intimately connected with geographical exploration. 

 Just as the navy owes much of its efficiency to our coasting and 

 mercantile marine and to our hardy fishermen, so have geography 

 and other sciences been strengthened by the labours of those 

 practical and scientific men who have been engaged in marine 

 or territorial surveys. 



The Himalayas, the highest mountains in the world, have ex- 

 cited the interest of many travellers and many geographers ; 

 very much has been written about them, some from personal 

 knowledge, and a good deal on second-hand information. Much 

 confusion has resulted from the features of the north-western 

 area being so dissimilar in composition to those of the rest, or 

 eastern part, of the chain, and the limitation placed on the 

 breadth and extent of the whole as a mountain mass. There 

 has been a tendency to apply the term " Himalaya " in too ex- 

 tended a sense : it should, I consider, be restricted to those 

 portions which dominate the plains of India, from the inhabi- 

 tants of which country we have derived the name. This would, 

 strictly speaking, apply only to the snowy range seen from the 

 plains of India bordering upon the course of the Ganges ; but 

 we might, I think, use the term in an extended sense, so as to 

 include that which we may call the north-western Himalaya, 

 nortt of the Punjab, and also the eastern Himalaya, bordering 

 on Assam. 



The orography of this mountain mass has been recently ably 

 handled by Messrs. Medlicott and Blanford.'and I follow them 

 in all their main divisions and nomenclature, which are based 

 upon a thorough understanding of the rocks of the country. 

 Some line must be selected where the term Himalaya in its 

 widest sense must cease to be used, and this certainly cannot be 

 better defined than by the valley of the Indus from Attock 

 to Bunji. On this line we find the great bending round 

 or change in the strike of all the ranges. Strictly speaking, the 

 change commences on the south, where the Jhelum River leaves 

 the mountains, but this line, north of Mozufferabad, continues 

 on into the above-mentioned part of the Indus valley. To the 

 mountains north of the Indus on its east and west course the 

 name Himalaya should certainly never be applied. For this 

 north- we^t, Trans-Indus part of the Asian chain we have the 

 well-known name Mustagh, so far as the head of the Gilgit 

 valley; the Hindu Rush being an excellent term now in coram n 

 use for its extension t ■> the Afghan country. 



The observations made by many of the assistants of the 

 Indian Geological Survey, more especially by Stoliczka, and 

 more recently by Lydekker 2 in the Himalayas, combined with 

 those made by myself in the same region, have, when considered 

 in conjunction with the ascertained strike of the granitoid or 

 gneissic rocks, led me to separate the great Central Asian chain 

 into the following five principal divisions, with some minor sub- 

 divisions : — 



Centra! Asian Chain? 



3. Himalaya 



4. Outer or Lower Himalaya 



5. Sub-Himalaya 



its widest meaning, so as to 



1. The main axis or Central 



Asian, Ruenlun 



2. Trans-Himalaya 



I use the word "chain" i 

 compr^e the whole length and breadth of a mountain mass, and 

 not, as it has been sometimes used, to describe a "chain" or 

 single line of mountain peaks. 



I show these and the equivalent ranges of other geographers 

 and authors in the accompanying synoptical form ; and if sections 

 be made, at intervals of about 100 miles apart, through the 

 whole mass of the chain from the plains of India to Thibet, they 

 show where the different ranges are locally represented, and how 

 they separate or are given off from the main axi> lines. The 

 same scale for both vertical and horizontal measurements should 

 be used, because there is nothing more misleading than sections 

 in which an exaggerated vertical scale is used. In our pre-ent 

 state of ignorance as to the composition of the chain eastward 

 from the source of the Sutlej, we cannot attempt to lay 

 down there any axis lines of original elevation. The separa- 

 tion by Mr. Clements Markham 4 and Mr. Trelawney Saunders ' 

 of the line of highest peaks into one range, and the water-parting 

 into another, is an acceptable solution of the physical features 

 as at present known of this part of the chain. I am led 

 to think, however, that when this ground is examined it will 

 resolve itself into a series of parallel ridges more or less clo e, 

 and oblique to the line of greatest altitude as defined by the line 

 of high peaks, closing diagonally even the main drainage line 

 of the Sanspu, just as we see the Ladak axis cros-ing the Indus 



1 A Manual of the Geology 0/ /ml/a, 1879, p. 9. 

 3 Memoirs of the Geology of India. 



3 Consult Atlas Sheets of the Indian Survey, 1 inch=4 miles, and latest 

 map of Turkestan and the countries between the British and Russian 

 dominions in India — 1 inch — 32 miles. Compiled under the orders of 

 Lieut.-Ucn. J. T. Walker. C.B., R.E., F.R.S. 



4 Thibet. Boyle and Manning. Introduction. 



5 Geographical Magazine, July, 1877, p. 173. 



