Physical Geography of Hindostan. 329 



east, north, and north-west, with a general equatorial direc- 

 tion, bending at the extremities south-east and south-west. 

 A magnificent chain, constituting the Western Ghauts, runs 

 nearly parallel to the shore, along the whole western sea- 

 board, from Goozerat south to Ceylon. A large equatorial 

 mass, forming the Vindergah range on the north and Satpoo- 

 tra on the south, bending eastward from this, constitutes 

 the basins of the Taptee and Nerbudda. The Gomsoor and 

 Rajmahal hills, which bound the delta of the Ganges on the 

 west, constitute almost independent masses ; and the range 

 along the eastern side of the peninsula towards the seaboard 

 is, as compared to the Western Ghauts, irregular in struc- 

 ture and inconsiderable in elevation. Shelving or sloping 

 gently from the inner sides of the latter of these, is the 

 vast table-land of the Deccan, resting on the highlands of 

 Malwa on the north, under the 20th parallel, and extend- 

 ing eastward and southward, till terminated by the moun- 

 tain spur which stretches from the Nhilgherries towards 

 Madras. Stretching again from the base of the mountains 

 on both sides of the peninsula on to the shore, and so ex- 

 tending all round the sea-coast, is a low border on the 

 eastern or Coromandel, and the Concan on the western or 

 Malabar coast. It varies from 5 to 50 miles in breadth, and 

 its average elevation is about 30 feet above the level of the 

 sea. A large portion of it is obviously of very recent marine 

 origin; and on the northern and southern portion of the 

 shores of Western India it is broken up into numberless 

 islands, of which the group of fourteen — of which Bombay 

 is one — is the best known and most beautiful. 



It will be thus seen that the peninsula of Hindostan con- 

 sists of three distinct parts, — a central table-land, of an ave- 

 rage elevation of about 1500 feet, and a maximum of about 

 2500 feet, sprinkled with magnificent isolated conical hills, 

 some 2000 above the plain and 4000 above the sea, of a vast 

 circumvallation of mountains, spreading out into a great 

 mass on the north-west, and presenting on the west two 

 stupendous groups, rising at Mahabaleshwar, near Bombay, 

 under the 18th parallel, to the elevation of 4500 feet, — the 

 Nhilgherry group, under the 12th parallel, attaining an alti- 



