784 On the Physical Geography of the Himalaya. [Aug. 



faintly traceable beneath Nepal, and is wholly lost beneath Sikim 

 and Bhutan. But, the great bed of debris is every where present, 

 and with no other distinctions than those pointed out, whether it be 

 divided into Bhaver and Dhun, by the sandstone range, as is usually 

 the case west of the Mechi, or be not so divided owing to the absence 

 of that range, as is always the fact east of the Mechi. Again, every 

 where there is, at that point where this vast bed of gravel and sand thins 

 out, a constantly moist tract, caused by the percolation of hill waters 

 through the said bed, and their issue beyond it ; and that constantly 

 moist tract is the Tarai, whether it run regularly parallel to the line of 

 mountains and be distinctly troughed, as to the westward is the case, 

 or, whether there be no such regularity of parallelism or of troughing, 

 as to the eastward is the case. 



Why that vast mass of porous debris which every where constitutes 

 the appropriated domain of the Saul forest, and that imporous trough 

 outside of it which every where constitutes its drain, should, as far 

 eastward as the Mechi, be both of them developed parallelly to each 

 other and to the line of the mountains, whilst beyond the Mechi east- 

 ward to Assam (exclusive) they should exhibit little or no such 

 parallelism, but should rather show themselves plainwards, like an 

 irregular series of salient and resalient angles resting on the mountains, 

 or like small insulated plateaux,* or high undulated plains, f surrounded 

 in both the latter cases by low swampy land analogous to the Tarai, it 

 would require a volume to illustrate in detail. I have given a few 

 conspicuous instances in the foot notes. For the rest it must suffice to 

 observe that such are the general appearances of the Bhaver and Tarai 



* Parbat Jowar, on the confines of Assam and Rangpur, is one of the most 

 remarkable of these small plateaux. It is considerably elevated, quite insulated, 

 remote from the mountains, and covered with Saul, which the low level around 

 exhibits no trace of. Piirbat Jowar is a fragmentary relic of the high level or Bhaver, 

 to which the Saul tree adheres with undeviating uniformity. 



•f Conspicuous instances occur round Dinajpur and N. W. and N. E. of Siligori 

 in Rangpur, where are found highly undulated downs, here and there varied by flat- 

 topped detached hillocks, keeping the level of the loftiest part of the undulated 

 surface. Looking into the clear bed of the Tishta it struck Dr. Hooker and 

 myself at the same moment, how perfectly the bed of the river represented in 

 miniature the conformation of these tracts, demonstrating to the eye their mode of 

 origination under the sea. 



