SIMLA, India, the chief town of a district of the same in the Punjab, the most im portant of the hill-resorts and the summer capi tal of the Indian government, about 98 miles north-northeast of Ambala, 7,156 feet above the sea and since 1903 connected by a moun tain railway with the Peninsular Railway sys tem. Simla is situated on a series of wooded hill ridges, covered with deodars, rhododendrons and an innumerable variety of ferns; com mands a magnificent prospect of the Himalayas, and has an equable temperature that rarely exceeds The governor-general and the commander-in-chief annually remove hither with their entire staff from Delhi, and go into residence for six months. All the environs are dotted with picturesque villas, and there are churches, schools, hotels, clubs, banks, etc. The chief schools are the Roman Catholic Orphanage for the children of soldiers, on the model of the Lawrence asylums; the Mayo industrial schools for the orphans of poor civilians; Bishop Cotton's School and the Pun jab Girls School, both for the higher educa tion of the children of well-to-do Europeans.
The district of Simla which is entirely sur rounded by petty native states, has an area of 18 square miles, of which only about 12 are cultivated. The crops are wheat, Indian corn, ginger and poppy. Efforts are being made to grow hops, tea and cinchona. The neighbor ing mountains yield lead, iron and slate. This tract of hill country was acquired by the Brit ish in 1816, as a result of the Gurkha War and has since been augmented by purchase, lapse and exchange. The first house was built in 1819; Lord W. Bentinck was the first gov ernor-general to select it as his summer quarters. Pop., town, 15,000 (winter), 35,000 (summer) : district, 50,000.