PHYSICAL FEATURES. 23 



the Central Himalayas. There are fewer great peaks found in it; on 

 the other hand it is more intact as a continuous range, being only 

 traversed by one river, the Sutlej, within the area examined by me. 

 It forms therefore a " divide " between the drainage of the Ganges and 

 the Sutlej. It is comparatively snow-free, except in the higher tracts 

 of the Lissar and Byans headwaters. All the great passes which 

 lead into Tibet between Spiti and the Nepal frontier are situated 

 in this range. Structurally it consists of a system of great flexures of 

 sedimentary rocks ; practically all the diagrams figured in the plates 

 illustrate sections and profiles seen in this Northern range of the Cen- 

 tral Himalayas. 



North and north-west of the Central Himalayas extends the 

 Tibetan table-land Tibetan table-land ; this again is formed by a 

 north of it. number of folds, just in the same manner as is 



the Himalayan girdle south of it, with this difference that the synclinal 

 troughs, within which the Sutlej and Indus flow, are filled by enormous, 

 more or less horizontal deposits of post-tertiary age, probably of la- 

 custrine origin. So, for instance, the Hundes plateau, already de- 

 scribed in its broad outlines, is nothing else but the filled- in trough in 

 which the Sutlej now flows. 



As already said, this Northern range of the Central Himalayas 



is a continuous ridge, and is the water-parting 



P&SS6S into Tibet 



between the Gangetic system and the Sutlej. 

 Within the limits of the ground examined by me, this range is only 

 pierced by one river, namely, the Sutlej, which flows through a deep V- 

 shaped gorge near the Shipki village in Hundes, East and south-east of 

 this point the only access to the high plateau of Hundes is by way of a 

 number of more or less difficult passes. They are all closed during the 

 winter and few of them are open for the traffic between India and Tibet 

 before the end of May each year. With few exceptions they are only 

 passable to men and sheep, the latter being generally used as beasts of 

 burden. They vary in height above the sea-level from about i6 #1 ooo 

 to 19,000 feet, and in most cases are partially obstructed by glaciers 

 and their moraines. 



( 23 ) 



