578 REPORT—1883. 
I use the word ‘chain’ in its widest meaning, so as to comprise the whole 
length and breadth of a mountain mass, and nof, 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 axis 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 
present 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 separation by Mr. Clements Markham? 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 close, and oblique to the 
line of greatest altitude as defined by the line of high peaks, crossing diagonally 
even the main drainage line of the Tsang-po,? just as we see the Ladak axis crossing 
the Indus near Hanlé, or the Pir Panjal that of the Jhelum, Sir Henry Strachey’s 
conception of the general structure was the soundest and most scientific first pro- 
pounded.t He considered it to be made up of a series of parallel ranges running 
in an oblique line to the general direction of the whole mass, the great peaks being 
on terminal butt-ends of the successive parallel ranges, the watershed following the 
lowest parts of the ridges, and the drainage crossing the highest, in deep gorges 
directly transverse to the main lines of elevation. 
It will be seen from sections, drawn as above, that the mountain mass of: the 
Himalayas increases gradually in height from the south to about its central portion, 
and then as gradually falls towards the north side. There is no abrupt and con- 
spicuous slope from the higher line of peaks to the plains ; a succession of spurs from 
the main waterparting intervenes, and these spurs retain often a very considerable 
altitude far to the south. The spurs terminate, usually, abruptly towards the plains 
of India, at an altitude of 5,000 to 8,000 feet, just within a more or less broad 
belt of fringing low hills, the well-known Sivaliks. 
It has been laid down that the Himalayan chain culminates in two parallel 
ranges running through its entire length from the Indus to the Brahmaputra, and 
these have been called the north and south Himalaya, or central and southern ; 
the two combined (they are very close in parts) really constitute the above chain. 
We can apply this system to certain portions of the range, but it breaks down 
when we reach the Sutlej on one side and the Monass on the other. The more 
we increase the scale of our maps, the greater the number of axial lines we can 
establish, all intimately connected with, and subsidiary to, the run or strike of 
the greater series of axial elevations. 
EXPLANATION OF THE DIFFERENT RANGEs,° 
1. Kuenlun Range —The most westerly extension of this granitoid axis is 
found W.N.W. of the Zangi-diwan pass at Oikul and the Victoria Lake. Here 
Turkestan and the countries between the British and Russian dominions in India— 
1 inch=32 miles. Compiled under the orders of Lieut.-Gen. J. T. Walker, C.B., R.E., 
F.R.S. 
1 Thibet. Boyle and Manning. Introduction. 
2 Geographical Magazine, July 1877, p. 173. 
8 ’Tsang-po, Tsanpu, Sangpo, Sinpti—of different authors. 
4 «Physical Geography of Western Thibet,’ Royal Geographical Society’s Journal, 
vol. xxiii. p. 2. 
5 The secondary ranges are not to be understood as being invariably true axis 
lines of elevation, but rocks of sedimentary origin on the flank, N. or S. of such main 
