DEKHAN. India south of the Vindhya range and of the Nerbadda and Satpura, is termed the Peninsula by the British, but northern Hindus and Mahomedans call it the Dakshana or Dekhan, meaning south. At its broadest part, in lat. 22° N., it is 1200 miles across, but it tapers away towards the south, and in lat. 7° 40' N. ends in Cape Comorin, the Indian Ocean washing its western, and the Bay of Bengal its eastern shores. A range of rnountains runs along each side of this peninsula, parallel with the coast, leaving between them and the sea, in their whole length from north to south, a belt of low level land from 20 to 50 miles in breadth. These two ranges are termed the Eastern Ghats, and the Syhadri mountains or Western Ghats and have elevations of 1200 to 3000 feet respee'tively ; but selit.w.mountains and spurs front the western range attain to 6000 and 8000 feet above the level of the sea. The Western Ghats, on the side next the sea, at places sink pre cipitously to the level belt below. The Eastern Ghats do not fall so abruptly ; but both ranges are , covered with thick forests, through which a few ' passes lead from the coasts into the interior of the country, which is upraised by the mountains into table-lands from 1200 to 3000 feet above the sea, tho general declivity of tho land being from west to east Tho Bombay and Madras armies are distributed over the Dekhan, and branch out into adjoi fling provinces. Thus the Bombay Presidency has its troops in Gujerat, Cuteh, and Sind on the north-west of the Peninsula ; and the Madras troops hold British Burma, Mysore, Travancore, and Cochin. Though Dekhan signifies the south, as Poorub does the east, when applied to Bengal and its dependencies, at the present day the term is generally restricted to the Hyderabad and Dowlatabad provinces lying between Berar and the Kistna, and from the Syhadri or IVestern Ghats eastwards to Telingana. The Hindus and British in Northern India, however, make the Dekhan more extensive, and regard it as including all the southern table-land, supported as it were by a triangle formed by the Satpura or sub Vindhya on the N., the Syhadri or Western Ghats on the west, and the Eastern Ghats on the east, the Satpura range constituting the base of the triangle. The length from the Satpura range to Saletn, and breadth from Mahabaleshwar to Sirguja, aro about 700 miles. But if Chutia Nagpur be considered as part of this great table land, it may be said to extend nearly 250 miles further in a N.E. direction, or about 950 miles in all. Its highest parts axe those nearest the Western Ghats, and in the centre of Mysore.
Mahabaleshwar, in lat.18° N., and long.73° 45' E., is 4700 feet ; the source of Kistna, 4500 feet ; source of Godavery, 3000 feet ; Poona, 1823 feet ; source of Manjera, 3019 feet ; and the rivers rising in ravines between spurs of tbe Western Ghats, wind their way through Eastern Ghats across the Denali, the slope being in that direction. The plains of Nagpur, 1000 feet, slope to S.E. dmined by Wain-Ganga, which falls into the dodavery. Hyderabad is 1800 feet ; Secunderabad, in lat. 17° 26' N., lat. 78° 33' E., is 1837 feet. Beder, in lat. 17° 58' N., long. 77° 36' E., is 2359 feet. From the Wain-Ganga the surface rises towards N.E., where Rypur, lat 21° 12' N., long. 81° 40' E., is 1747 feet ; source of Mahanadi, 2111 feet Nundi drug, highest in Mysore, 4856 feet, slope from hence on all sides, S. to Bangalore, 3000 feet ; E. to plains of Carnatic-Chitoor, 1100 feet ; N. to plains of Gooty, 1182 feet ; and those of Bellary plains, 1600 feet; Gooty plains, 1182 feet ; Cuddapah town, 507 feet ; and E. part of Cuddapah district, 450 feet.
A great outburst of greenstono or trap rock covers all I3erar from the Nerbadda to Bombay, and southwards through Nirmul to Naldrug ; between Naldrug and Beder, and for 100 miles north and south of Beder, aro great hills of laterite. The area covered by trap in the Peninsula of India can be little less than 200,000 square miles. Except the hollow of the Loonar lake, there is no trace of any crater in this volcanic region : 20 miles to the east of Nirmul, and a few miles south of the mountains, hornblende slate occurs, resting on granite and quartz rock. The countries through which the Gatparba and the Malparba run, and the lower course of the Kistna, Bliima, and Tumbudra, and all about Kalla.dgi, Kurnool, and Cuddapah, aro formed of strata of limestone and clay-slate. The granitic platform of the Dekhan, which intervenes between the Kistna and the Godavery, is intersected by numerous greenstone dykes, sometimes porphyritic, having for the greater part a direction from E. to IV. Tito inhabitants of this great table-land region aro nations speaking Gondi, Mahrati, Telugu, and Canarese ; and for 120 iniles north-west frotn the town of Sadashipet, running on through Beder and Dangapura, the three last languages join, and the villages aro styled Si-bhasha-basti, three tongue towns. This mingling line is in the Hyder abad Dominions, a State in subsidiary alliance formed from out of the lands of the Gond, Teling, Mahmtta, and Canarese races, Persian and Urdu or Hindustani beiag the court languages.