PHYSICAL FEATUKES. 11 



vening Isa Khel plain, has a level of 700 feet at Kalabagh, declining' to 



650 opposite the Khasor range. This last-named range is about 3,000 



feet above the sea at its northern end, rising nearly a thousand feet 



higher to the southward before it terminates. The Mia Roh maintains 



a very regular height of nearly S,000 feet, for most of its length, until 



it reaches Shekh Budin, where the massive clump of Makdum Grind, 1 



with two conspicuous parallel east and west lobes, rises suddenly to 



4,516 feet, 3 far overtopping all the local elevations, though of less 



height than the Prangzai Sir (4,797 feet) of the Lakargarh Khatak 



mountains, north-westward from Kalabagh, 



To the north and north-west of this crooked and broken system of 



ranges lie the Kohat salt field and the open plain 

 Surrounding regions. r 



of the Bannu valley ; to the east or south-east 



are the plain of Isa Khel and the river Indus, and to the south the 

 sandy plains of the Derajat. Away to the west rise range after rano-e 

 forming, in the country of the Yd/a (independent) tribes or of Af «-han- 

 istan, the northern continuations of the Suleman mountains, and including 

 a conspicuous unevenly table-topped summit called the Takt-i-Suleman, 

 or throne of Solomon (Plate II) . 



In the Salt Range Memoir I have already noticed the peculiarity in 



Draina e the P h ^ sical £ e °g ra P n y of the Upper Punjab, that 



the general southerly tendency of the drainao-e 

 of the country is but slightly interfered with by the existence of that 

 range. This observation may be repeated for the country under notice. 

 The Indus itself intersects the whole range, after receiving the Kabul 

 river, its largest affluent from the west; and the Kuram cuts rio-ht 

 across the chain continuous with the Salt Range. A far smaller stream 

 from the northward, making, however, a much deeper and narrower 

 gorge, does the same at Chichali pass, where the canon called the 

 Darwaza (or doorway) is eroded between limestone cliffs, at one spot 



1 Gundj a peak or excrescence. 



2 In the latest maps this is given as 4,551 feet, so that probably 35 feet should be 

 added to the rest of these elevations. 



( 221 ) 



