8 



IIAYDEN : GEOLOGY OF NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN. 



until we shall have made strati graphical as well as topographical surveys 

 of the intervening area, it will be impossible to correlate with certainty 

 the ranges of Afghanistan with those of the Himalayan arc. 



The propriety of applying the name Hindu Kush to the various 

 ranges resulting from this virgation was long ago questioned by Mr. 

 Griesbaeh, who took exception to the inclusion under the name " Hindu 

 Kush " of the Safed Koh and associated ranges on the south-eastern 

 frontier of Afghanistan ; he says (13, 63) : " North and east of Kabul 

 the traveller enters the mountainous country of the great ranges which 

 traverse entire Afghanistan as an unbroken chain, with their subor- 

 dinate off -shoots on both sides of the watershed. This latter may be said 

 to begin in the highly elevated mountain ranges which bear generally 

 the name of Pamir, of which there are several ; we really know too 

 little of the orography of that region to be able to decide in what 

 manner this mountain tract is linked on one side to the North-Western 

 Himalayas, and on the other to the great watershed of Afghanistan. 

 If we follow the latter, it appears that after a very nearly east to west 

 strike near the 37° latitude it assumes a more south-westerly direction 

 till it reaches the mountain centre east of Bamian, within which the 

 three river systems arise, of the Kunduz and Balkh drainage, the Kabul 

 river system, and the Helmand, the latter which drains into the Seistan 

 lakes. Now to this great watershed Eastern, as well as English Geo- 

 graphers have applied the name of Hindu Kush ; by it is meant the 

 watershed formed of the great peaks and chains between the Little 

 Pamir and the Shibar pass, east of Bamian, and no other system of 

 ranges, except the spurs closely connected orographically with it on 

 both flanks of it. To extend the name to outlying ranges, which 

 have not even a common direction, i.e., are not even parallel with the 

 line of watershed here described and differ absolutely in their geological 

 structure from that of the Hindu Kush would only tend to hopelessly 

 confuse all geographical expressions. I may here mention that the 

 people of the country itself, living on the slopes of the Hindu Kush, 

 really apply this name only to the pass Kotal-i-Hindu Kush between 



