a CENTRAL PRO VINCES
the Narbada. The general elevation of this plateau varies from 1,500
to z,ooo feet. The highest part is that immediately overhanging
the Narbada, and the general slope is to the north, the rivers of this
area being tributaries of the Jumna and Ganges. The surface of the
country is undulating, and broken by frequent low hills covered with
a growth of poor and stunted forest. Another division consists of
the long and narrow valley of the Narbada, walled in by the Vindhyan
and Satpura Hills to the north and south, and extending for a length of
about zoo miles from Jubbulpore to Handia, with an average width
of twenty miles. The valley is situated to the south of the river, and
is formed of deep alluvial deposits of extreme richness, excellently
suited to the growth of wheat. Lofty and spreading mahud-trees stud
the plain; and its surface is scoured by the numerous and rapid streams
which, pouring down from the Satpura Hills during the rainy season,
have cut for themselves a passage to the Narbada through the soft soil.
South of the valley the Satpura range or third division stretches across
the Province, in the shape of a large triangle, its base or eastern face
extending for loo miles from Amarkantak to the Saletekri hills in
Balaghat, and its sides running westward for about 400 miles, and
gradually approaching each other till they terminate in two parallel
ridges which bound on either side the narrow valley of the Tapti river
in Nimar. The greater part consists of an elevated plateau, in some
parts merely a rugged mass of hills hurled together by volcanic action,
in others a succession of bare stony ridges and narrow fertile valleys, in
which the soil has been deposited by drainage. Steep slopes lead up
to the summit of the plateau from the plain country on the north and
south, which are traversed in all directions by narrow deep ravines,
hollowed out by the action of the streams and rivers, and covered
throughout their extent with forest. The general elevation of the
plateau is 2,o6o feet, but several of the peaks rise to 3,5oo and a few to
more than 4,000 feet. The Satpuras form the watershed of the plains
lying north and south of them; and some of the .more important rivers
of the Province, the Narbada, Tapti, Wardha, and Wainganga, rise in
these hills. Extending along the southern and eastern faces of.the
Satpura range lies the fourth. geographical division, the plain of Nagpur,
Chhattisgarh, and Sambalpur. It is broken in two places by strips of
hilly country which run from the Satpuras in the north to the ranges
enclosing it on the south, and is thus divided into three tracts present-
ing some dissimilar features. The Nagpur plain, drained by the Wardha
and Wainganga, contains towards the west the shallow black soil in
which autumn crops, like cotton and the large millet, jowdr, which do
not require excessive moisture, can be successfully cultivated. This
area, mainly comprised in the valley of the Wardha river, is the great
cotton-growing tract of the Province, and at present the most wealthy.
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