The Neilgherries, a mountain offshoot from the Western Ghats, are situated between lat. 10° and 12° N., and long. and 77° E. The base of these mountains, including that of the Kunda Hills, covers a' circumference of 200 miles. Their greatest length is from E. to W. 46 miles, and medium breadth 15 miles. The surface is com posed of ridges of different elevations. The country is divided into three Naad, viz. Peringa, Malka, and Todawar Naad. The first two are moun-1 tainous, but the third is of sloping bills, and a gently undulating surface of table-land. Doda betta is 8700 feet above the level of the sea. The people occupying these Naad are the Todawar, Badagar, Kotar, and Kurambar. The Neilgherries, and its various branches of the Kunda, Sispara, and Kotagherry, are the mountain system of greatest absolute elevation in India proper, and exceed at several points 8000 feet.
The Travancore mountains present a striking analogy to the island of Ceylon. They are loftiest at the extreme north of the district, where they stretch east and west for 60 or 70 miles, separating the districts of Dindigul and Madura.
The Pulney or Palnai mountains are west of Dindigul.
The Animallay, south of Cohnbatore; the Sheva ghiri mountains, south-west of Madura ; and ranges are near Conrtallum.
The Trans-Gangetic Peninsula mountain system may be compared to an open fan or to an out stretched hand, of which the thumb represents the hills of Arakan, the fore-finger the ridge which terminates in Malacca, the little finger the Nanling chain, running through Southern China, north of Canton ; and the wrist the depressed edge of the table-land of Tibet, from which its waters are poured down into the Pacific, through valleys corresponding to the openings of the out stretched palm. One range prolonged .through Arakan halts at Point Negrais, to reappear through the Andamans and Nicobars, and, after extending along the S.W. coast of Sumatra, passes eastward through Java and the Lesser Sunda Islands, terminating at its S.E. point. Another runs along the Malay Peninsula, is lost for a time, but appears again in the high peak of Lingin, and terminates in Banca and Billiton, and a branch from this separates at l'ulo on the cast coast of the Peninsula, and ends at Carimata, in the strait between Billiton and Borneo. Two parallel ranges traverse Cambodia and Cochin-China in the same direction. Between the Cambodian range and the mountains at Sarawak, on the north - west extremity of Borneo, the Natunas Islands and Pulo Condor form the connecting link. This range, after traversing the western
part of Borneo, terminates on the south coast a little to the eastward of Kotaringin. The Annam or Cochin-Chinese range can be traced most distinctly across the Archipelago to Australia.
The Yoma Mountains are the central chain of Burma proper. Yoma means a chain of mountains, as the parallel ranges of Arakan Yoma and the Pegu Yoma. They extend into Pegu, and form the spine, as it were, of the province, with the valley of the Irawadi on the cast, and the several minor valleys lying between the offshoots by which the chain is terminated on the south, as the valley of the Zamayee or Pegn river, the valley of the Blaine river, together with the intermediate valley of the Phoungye river or Paizundoung creek, lying between the Maine and Pegu rivers. One of the most southern points of the Yoma lies between the Blaine and Paizuudoung, of which the Pagoda Hill at Rangoon may be con-' sidered the last elevation, marking the direction of the chain or line of local disturbance. The most elevated portion of the Yoma chain appears to be that from whence these southern branches radiate, where the Oakkan and Thoun-zai Choungs derive their source, falling into the Maine river on the east and south. This part of the chain Dr. McClelland estimates at about 2000 feet above the sea on the west, and the Zamayee and the Phaingye rivers presenting steep and inaccessible declivities.
The productiveness of the tin mines of the Malay Peninsula and of Banca is well known. The Cambodian range is also rich in minerals, especially the Borneon part of it. Iron, coal, gold, and diamonds are obtained. The volcanic islands of the Archipelago also contain metals, gold-dust being found at the bottoms of many of the mountain streams.
Snow.—In the Himalaya the lowest height at which snow has fallen in winter is about 2500 feet ; but such cases are extremely rare, having occurred in Kamaon and Garhwal only twice (in 1817 and 1849) since the British took possession of the country. At an elevation of 5000 feet scarcely one year in ten passes by without snowfall ; but at this height the snow disappears after a few days, and sometimes even hours. ' It snows, but one does not see it,' said the natives of Khat mandu (4354 feet), meaning that the rare nightly hoar-frosts are melted away by the earliest rays of the sun. 6000 feet may be assigned as the limit where snow regularly falls in winter with a pro bability of remaining some time upon the ground.