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Notices of Books. 



its superficial area is not estimated higher than 1 ,280,000 English miles. 

 It is bounded on the S. W. by the Indus, and on the N. E. by the 

 Himalayan mountains, being washed on the two remaining principal 

 sides by the Indian ocean. From its southern portions approaching 

 so near to the equator, and its northern being nearly in the latitude of 

 the south of Europe, great diversity may be expected both in the tem- 

 perature of its climate and the character of its productions ; and this 

 diversity is further increased by the varying elevation of its surface in 

 different places. 



" The Himalayan mountains rise to a prodigious height in its imme- 

 diate vicinity, and three other systems of mountains traverse it in differ- 

 ent directions, viz. the western and eastern ghauts, which run parallel 

 to the Malabar and Coromandel coast, and the Yindhya range, which 

 runs east and west across the central part of India. The first of these 

 is at once the loftiest, the most continuous, and rises the most abruptly 

 from the sea. Towards its northern extremity, it rarely exceeds 3,000 

 feet in elevation; but as it approaches its junction with the Coro- 

 mandel range, and forms with that the elevated tract called the Neil- 

 gherries, it is said to attain to the height of 8,000 feet,thence descending 

 as it approaches Cape Comorin. The Coromandel range no where 

 exceeds 3,000 feet, and is perforated by many considerable rivers, 

 which, rising on the eastern slope of the western ghauts, flow, with 

 scarcely any exception, to the eastward. The valley supported between 

 the two ranges like them is of varied elevation, but also ascends from 

 north to south. In Aurungabad and the Dukhun it does not surpass 

 1,400 feet ; among the Neilgherries it reaches 7,000, and the diversity 

 of its productions is thus in the double ratio of the differen ce of latitude 

 which it covers and of elevation which it attains. 



" It is not easy to define the exact extent of the Vindhya, or great 

 central zone of Indian mountains. To the eastward it is found to de- 

 flect the united stream of the Ganges and Jumna, after their junction 

 at Allahabad, and to the westward it is lost in the mountains of Guzerat. 

 It thus constitutes a base to the triangle, of which the eastern and 

 western ghauts form the other two sides, and completes the boundary 

 of what is called the table-land of the peninsula. Its height is not sup-, 

 posed any were to exceed 3,000 teet, and it gradually declines both to 

 the north and east from about 23^ north latitude and 82° east longitude, 

 where are its highest points. To the south, and west it throws off 

 many spurs, which become intermingled with the northern prolonga- 

 tions of the Malabar ghauts, and many rich and diversified valleys are 

 found interposed between. 



" North and west of the Vindhya range, the country descends into the 

 valley of the Indus, of which the soil is generally sandy and covered with 

 a saline efflorescence, and the water is brackish, and so far below the 



