INDUS (Sans. Sindltu, probably from a root signifying "to flow"), the great river that bounds Hiudustan on the west. It rises in Thibet, near the sources of the kindred Sutlej, in lat. 31° 20' n., and long. 81° 30' east. The precise spot is said to be 18,000 ft. above the level of the sea, and to be on the n. side of the Kailas, a Himalayan peak which overtops it by at least 4,000 feet. Its general course, till it forces its way between the Himalaya proper and the Hindu Kush, is towards the n.w., being pretty nearly at right angles to its general direction through the plains. On reaching Sussi (near the borders of Budakshan), its most northern point, it turns southward, loses itself in the hills, and reappears at Takot in Kohistan, n. of the Punjab. After a run of 870 m., having still 940 m. before it, it becomes navigable at a point which, on other grounds also, is worthy of notice. Here it receives the Oahu], its principal affluent on the right; and here is Atak (Attock), anciently Taxila, the scene of Alexander the great's passage. About half-way from Atak to its mouth, it receives, on the left, the accumulated waters of the Punjab through the single channel of the Punjnud. Each of the "five water-courses," as well as the Cabul, is practicable for inland craft to the mountains. Below its confluence with the Punjnud the Indus, instead of increasing in volume, becomes gradually less. Its basin is here narrow, so that the affluents are insignificant, while its arid sandy nature causes the river to suffer from absorption and evaporation. This operates still more powerfully from the circumstance that the river here divides into numerous channels, many of which never return at all to the main stream, while others return much shrunken in volume. This wasting of the waters is,
however, not very apparent to the eye, owing to the gradual slackening of the current and the ascent of the tides. At Migani, 8 m, n. of Hyderabad, commences the Delta proper. which measures 75 m. upwards, by 130 along the coast of the Arabian sea. The area of the drainage—its extreme dimensions being respectively 000 m. and 750—has perhaps been overestimated at 488,000 sq.m., fully four times the extent of Great Britain and Ireland.
The value of the Indus as a route of traffic is less than that of most other streams of equal magnitude. In the winter, one only of its numerous outlets is at all available for communication with the sea; and even after the melting of the spring snows, there is no passage anywhere for en ordinary sea-going vessel of more than fifty tons. Still, in another respect the river is favorable for navigation, as the fall from Atak to the sea is only 1000 feet in 940 miles.
The Indus abounds with fish of excellent quality, and is infested by crocodiles. • The alluvium brought down by the stream has been calculated to be sufficient for an annual formation 42 In. long, 27 tn. broad, and 40 ft. deep. Near RoH, a short distance below the first point of divergence, both the main stream and one of its offsets pass through a ridge of limestone, which must at one time have turned the descending floods laterally into what is now a desert, but bearing the plainest traces of former cultivation.