Rainfall and climate in India / by Sir Joseph Fayrer.

  • Joseph Fayrer
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rainfall and climate in India / by Sir Joseph Fayrer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    //$ ranges, some of the peaks of the former reaching to a height of 11,000 feet; on the north-east, the heights of Assam, the Naga Hills, divide the drainage of the Brahmaputra from that of the Irawaddy. It is separated from Burmah and Siam by the Yonmadong and other mountain chains, whilst its coasts have the Bay of Bengal on the east, and the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean on the west and south, enclosing a table-land of from 1,500 to 3,000 feet above the sea level, between the Eastern and Western Ghats; this table-land slopes gradually to the east, most of the rivers running to the Bay of Bengal. The mountains are separated into two distinct systems by a continuous low land extending from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. This is washed by the streams of the Ganges and its tributaries on the east, by the Indus and its branches on the west. The western slope includes Scinde, the Punjaub, and part of Rajpootana ; the eastern, which is divided from it by a water parting 900 feet above the sea level, contains the greater part of the North-west Provinces, Oude, and the lower provinces of Bengal. The north part of this lowland skirts the foot of the hills, and forms the damp region, called the Terai. The first or outer range of hills known as the Siwalik, and Salt Range, is about 2,000 feet high, whilst the valley separating these from the Himalayas is known as the Doon; the forest-clad base of the mountain range is known as the Bhabur. South of the lowlands of Hindostan is the trian- gular table-land of the Deccan, extending through 20° of latitude. Its base is the basins of the Indus and Ganges; its sides are the Eastern and Western Ghats and the littorals of the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, whilst the table-land seldom exceeds 2,000 to 3,000 feet high, and gradually slopes to the east. The Western Ghats rise to 4,000 to 5,000 feet; Dodabetta, the southern peak in the Neilgherries, is 8,640 feet high. The Eastern Ghats are not so high, and much less continuous than the Western. The whole of India forms two great water- sheds ; that of the Bay of Bengal on the east; that of the Arabian sea on the west. The former includes the whole of the peninsula east of the Aravulli hills and Western Ghats; the latter, the basin of the Indus, Nerbudda, Tapti, and the declivity of the Western Ghats. The water, parting, runs nearly vertically from Cashmere to Cape Comorin. This vast country, which has nearly two hundred and fifty millions of inhabitants, of races more ethnically distinct, and more numerous than those of Europe, has, owing to the nature of its physical geography and the extent of its area, every kind of climate, from that of the Torrid to the
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