PENINSULA. In the South and East of Asia there are several peninsulas, as that of Arabia, the peninsula of Gujerat, the peninsula of India, and that of Malacca. India, south of the Yindhya Range and of the Nerbadda river, is termed the Peninsula by the British, but the Hindus and Sluhamniadans call it the Dakshana, Dekhan, or 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 the promontory of Cape Comorin, the Arabian Sea washing its western and the Bay of Bengal its eastern shores. A range of mountains 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 mountain ranges are termed the Eastern Ghats, and the Syhadri mountains or Western Ghats, and have an average elevation of 1200 to 3000 feet respectively, but solitary mountains and spurs from the western range attain an elevation of 6000 and 8000 feet above the level of the sea. The Western Ghats, on the side next the sea, are scarped, and at places sink precipitously 2000 feet to the level belt below. The Eastern Ghats do not fall so abruptly ; but both ranges are covered with forests, through which a few passes lead from the coast into the interior of the country, which is an upraised table-laud froth 1200 to 3000 feet above the sea, the general declivity of the land being from west to east. To the north of Coimbatore the penin sular chain rises abruptly to 8000 feet as the Neilgherry Range, and continues northward as the mountains of Coorg. The rainfall, which is great on the western coast, is less on the Neilgherries, being 100 inches at Dodabetta and 64 inches at Ootacamund. Farther north, iu the Nagar district of Mysore, there are many rounded or table-topped hills, 4000 to 5000 feet high, often cultivated to that height, and rising in some places to upwards of 6000 feet. The climate of the western part is very humid, and particularly b0 at the town of Nagar or Bednor, 4000 feet high, on a spur of the western chain, where the rain is said to last for nine mouths, The Peninsula of India Is held by the independent kingdoms of Travancore, Cochin, ilysore, Hyderabad, Kolhapur, with smaller feudatory states ; but the larger part is under the British, forming the Madras and Bombay Presidencies, the Central Provinces and Oriaist being under Bengal, the British armies being dis tributed over the whole of the Dekhau, and branching out into some of the adjoining pro vinces ; thus the Bombay Presidency has its troops in Gujerat, Cutch, and Sind on the north-west of the Peninsula, as also at Aden, and the Madras troops hold British Burma.
Gneiss, granite, syenite, and trap form the prominent features of the Dekhan rocks; clayslate, mica, chlorite and hornblende schists, sandstones and limestones, with fossils of a pnst-oolite age, being the stratified rocks through which they burst. The greenstone is supposed by some
observers to decompose into a deep black earth, light when dry, and cracked and rent by the sun in the hot season, but forming a tenacious soil in the rains, rendering marching almost if not wholly impracticable. It is called Regur in the Dekhan, and is the `cotton soil' of Europeans, by many of whom it is regarded as indicating an unhealthy locality. The granite rocks, on the other hand, decompose into a red sandy soil, which is gener ally hard, and as it allows a rapid percolation of water and quickly dries, it is less fertile, but is considered more favourable to health.
Cold is found on the Neilghcrry Hills in the numerous streams of the Malabar eollectorate ; in the Dharwar, Bellary, Cuddapali, and Madura col lectorates ; in Mysore, in the Northern Circars, and is everywhere washed for; diamond,corundum, spine!, ruby, garnet, topaz, tourmaline, and beryl also occur.
The Tamil-speaking inhabitants of the Coro mandel coast can make themselves intelligible when they get into the districts on the western coast of the Peninsula, where Malealam is verna cular. They number about 14 millions of souls, and are largely engaged in agriculture. They have several extensive landed proprietors, and from prehistoric times had several independent kingdoms. One of these was the Pandya, another the Chola, regarding which little has come down to the present day. The several capitals of the Chola were at Conjeveratn, Woriur, Combaconuni, Gangondaram, Tanjore.
The people speaking the Telugu call themselves i Teling. They are about 13 millions in number, and occupy the eastern region between lat. 12° and 18° N.
The people who speak Canarese are about nine millions in number, chiefly in the centre of the Peninsula ; they are a tall and singularly graceful race, with whom a community something akin to polyandry is very prevalent. In this they some what resemble the Kandyans of Ceylon, the Coorg race, and the Nair of Travancore.
The Malealam language is spoken in the south west of the Peninsula by about 21 millions, and the Tulu on the seaboard, somewhat to the north, by about 100,000 or 150,000.
The people speaking the Mahratta language have widely emigrated from the ancient Maha rashtra, but the bulk of them are to be found occupying between lat. and 21° N.
The peninsula of Gujerat forms the province of Kattyawar, is well defined by the Gulfs of Cutch and Cambay, with the Runn on the N. and E., and the sea on the south. It contains 19,850 square miles, and Col. Jacob estimated its popula tion at 1,475,685.
The great triangular plateau which forms the Peninsula of India, in the later tertiary period was an island separated by an arm of the sea (now forming the valleys of the Ganges and Indus) from the Himalayan and Burmese countries.— Wallace, i. p. 316 ; Findlay. See Malay Peninsula.