Rivers. The great rivers issuing from the Himalaya from west to east in succession, are the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas, the Sutlej, the Jumna, the Ganges, the Gogra, the Gandak, the Kosi, the Tista, the Monas, and the Subansiri. The Indus, the Kabul river, the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas, and the Sutlej form seven large rivers, which flow through fertile valleys. The Jhelum runs hi the valley of Kashmir. The course of the Ravi and Chenab is short, and their valleys small, The Beas in its upper is in the Kulu valley, but lower down it becomes entangled amongst the lower ranges west of Mundi, whence it opens on the plains of the Sutlej. The Sutlej has a tortuous entangled course in its upper parts, but enters the valley west of Simla, in Sukeyt and Balaspur. The Brahmaputra, Indus, Sutlej, and Kurnali or Gogra are called by the Tibetans, Tam-jan khamba, or Horse's Mouth ; Shingh-gi-khamba, or Lion's Mouth ; Langchan-khamba, or Bull's Mouth ; and Mabja-khamba, or Peacock's Mouth. These four great rivers drain the Kailas group of mountains. They rise close to the great Kailas Purbut. Eastward of the meridian marked by the Sanpu falling into the plain of Assam, the rivers descending from the eastern part of the Tibetan highland cut up the plateau into a succession of lofty ranges and deep gorges running north to south. These rivers include the Dihong and other affluents of the Brahmaputra, also the great Yang-tze-kiang with its tributaries, which flows southwards to lat. 26° N., then turns eastward, to traverse the whole of China proper.
Passes. —The Himalaya present almost insur mountable obstacles to communication between the countries which they divide, thereby separating the Boti or people of Tibet from the Hindu family of India. The distinction of climate is not less posit ively marked, the ranges forming the lines of demarcation between the cold and dry climate of Tibet, with its dearth of trees, and the warm and humid climate of India, with its luxuriance of vege table productions. There are, however, many passes. In Kanawar there are fifteen, at elevations varying from 15,000 to 17,000feet. From the peak of Mono-mangli to the sources of the Gilghit and Kunar rivers, not less than 650 miles, the chain is pierced by the Sutlej and Para at the base of Porgyal, and by the Indus at the foot of Dyamur.
Between Gilghit and Chittagong there are a hundred passes ; but of all these, the basins of the Ganges and its four great feeders, the Gogra, the Gandak, Kosi, and Tista, are the great moun tain passes of the Himalaya.
The following are the heights of passes over the Outer Himalaya range Sub-.Himalayas or Siwalik. Along the southern base of the Himalaya, and parallel with the general direction of the mountains, a series of compara tively low ridges extends, formed of tertiary rocks. In the Panjab, the transition from the plains to the outer hills is marked by a belt of dry, porous ground, seamed by numerous gullies or ravines, from 100 yards to a mile wide, partly covered with long, tufty jungle grass. To the east the Terai occupies the same position. This is a belt of waste, marshy ground, a malarious region lof varying breadth, lying below the level of the plains. This tract affords pasture to innumerable ;herds of cows and hufftdoes. Beyond lies a dry 'belt of rising ground, called Bhavar, chiefly of a gravelly and sandy nature, with abundance of the sal tree (Vatica robusta). Next intervenes a range of fossiliferous sandstone, which almost uniformly edges the Himalaya from the Jhelum to Upper Assam. The space between these and the slope of the Himalayas themselves is occupied by the Duns, the Maris (in Nepal), and Dwars (in Bhutan), longitudinal valleys of rising ground, either cultivated or yielding a plentiful forest c,rrowth. Streams issuing from the Himalayan
ranges lose a great part or the whole of their ,water by percolation through the gravel in the 13havar region. At the base of the slope, much Df the water that has percolated the gravel reissues in the form of springs, the ground is marshy, and nigh grass replaces the forest. This tract is the Feral, a term not infrequently applied to the 'whole forest-clad slope of the Himalayas, known ilso iu Nepal as Morung.
Sivalaya (Sivalik) is the local name of the range separating the Dehra Doon from the plains east of lie Jumna, and this has given the term Siwalik. [t was in the Siwalik Hills that Lieut. (General Sir rroby) Cautley, in the early part of the 19th cen ;iffy, discovered the presence of fossils ; and the tollections made by him and Dr. Falconer were ilescribed by the latter in the Fauna Antigua ;ivalensis and Pakeontological Memoirs. The ?mat fossiliferous deposit of the Siwaliks is near he valley of Markanda, westward of the Jumna, mild below Nahum By the joint labours of Lieut. L'autley and Dr. Falconer, and of Lieutenants Baker and Durand, a sub-tropical mammalian 'ossil fauna was brought to light, unexampled for ,iciness and extent in any other region then mown. It included, amongst the Primates, pecies of macacus (2), and semnopithecus (2) ; Df the Carnivore, species of felis, cans, ursus, iymna, melee, mellivora, lutra, machmrodus, mhydriodon, etc. ; of the Proboscidea, elephas :7), euelephas loxodon (1), stegodon (5), mas todon (4), tetralophodon (6), trilophodon (7) ; )f the Ungulata perissodactyla, rhinoceros; acero herium, listridon, equus, hipparion ; of Ungulata trtiodactyla species, hippopotamus, hippopota nidon, tetraconodon, sus, cervus, camelopardalis, ivatherium, bos, bison, bubalus, antilope, capra, vie, eamelus. Of the Rodents, species of mus 1), rhizomys and hystrix. Among the Reptilia, onitors and crocodiles of living and extinct pecies, the enormous tortoise, Colossochelys ktlas, with numerous species of emys and rionyx. And, along with fossil fish, Cyprinidm nd Siluridx, no less than 25 species of shells vere found, all of which but 4 are now extinct. ' e general facies of the extinct fauna exhibited a ongreg,ation of forms participating of European, kfrican, and Asiatic types. They are beautifully .rranged in the London Natural History Museum. Himalaya, as a name, is from the Sanskrit words Una, snow, and Alaya, an abode. The range is so called Himadri, and Ilimavat ; also Himachala snowy mountain), and also Himadaka, the place Df appearance of snow (Adaya, appearance), whence me classic name 4Emodus. Himarat, the Western Iimalaya, where it bifurcates and embraces the .ountry occupied of old by the Sakte, was the Emkus of ancient geographers, the Himin of the Meese-Gothic, the Hemel (Himmel) of the German, and the Haven of the Anglo-Saxon. Pliny wns fully aware of the signification of the name, for he says (Hist. Nat. vi. p. 117), Imans in cola!rum lingua, nivorum signiticans.' Hindus call all the high snowy peaks of the Himalaya by the generic iuune Kailasa ; and, in the mythology of the Hin dus, Mount Kailasa is the heaven of Siva and of Vishnu ; another fabled Himalayan mountain, Meru or Su-niern, being the site of Swarga, the heaven of halm ; and in Hindu mythology the sacred Ganges is fabled to spring from the feet of Vishnu.