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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 1, p. 4.

4 THE LADIA2-V ElIPIPE [CHAP. once have found its way to the Indian Ocean across the continent, through what is known as the Palghat Gap to the south of the Nilgiris. The inference drawn by geologists from the general distribution of the hydrographical features of India seems to be that the continent, as we now know it, is but the eastern half of a far wider land area, of which the main water-parting was nearly, if not absolutely, coincident with that of the Western Ghats; and that the rivers flowing west- ward therefrom have disappeared with the land which they intersected. Throughout the more ancient regions of the Peninsula the rivers have eroded their channels to the point of adjust, ment between grade and rock resistance, and the level has become permanent. Thus the usual characteristic of Indian peninsular landscape is one of broad and open valleys with gentle slopes. Only the scarped edges of the sandstone outcrop maintain steep cliffs wherever they occur (as, for instance, at the southern edge of the Vindhyan sandstone area, overlooking the Narbada); and the variable resistance offered to denudation by the horizontal strata of the Deccan trap gives to Western India a certain predominance in square- cut rock edge and mountain wall which distinguishes it from the rest of the continent. In the extra-peninsular area the physical characteristics of land surface have been shaped by later processes of geological evolution. Here the rivers are still to be found deepening their channels at the bottom of narrow, steep-sided valleys, frequently raising their beds by the deposit of silt and alluvium, filling up low levels, and spreading out broad plains. In the long process of nature's mountain-building the slow upheaval is often of later date than the river channels. The rivers, retaining their ancient courses, have cut for themselves narrow waterways across the strike of the hills, and reach the open plains of the Indian border through moun- tain gorges or narrow clefts and gateways of most remarkable aspect. India in India, thus rough-hewn by the hand of nature, had hardly historical added the finishing touches to her outlines when her beauty times, and her promise were recognized by man. For many ages India was not known, even to its early inhabitants, by any single epithet which would embrace all her tribes and races. The earliest recognizable term for India, Bharatvarsha (the land of the Bharatas-a noble warrior tribe which came from the north), applied only to the basins of the Indus and the