250 SOUTHRRN SHAN STATUS
ridges exist in the trans-Salween States, though the country is for the
most part very rugged, and lofty hill masses are grouped near the
frontiers. The Myelat, east of the high range separating it from
Burma proper, is characterized by open rolling downs, large tracts of
which are almost treeless and rather dry, the average level of the
country being at a considerable altitude. Eastwards of the Myelat
the scenery changes from tropical to alpine, the main features being
the lateral ranges and intervening valleys described above. The first
of these tracts of lowland is the well-watered Yawnghwe valley, which
displays alternate expanses of park-like savannah forest and well-tilled
land, with the great Inle Lake in its centre. Eastwards of this comes
the basin of the Tamhpak, where broad plains of irrigated rice land are
backed by grassy downs sloping up to the hills; and beyond this lies
the typical highland strath in which the Nam Pawn runs. Thence to
the Salween extends a wide plateau, with its rolling prairies well
timbered in parts, broken up in places by outcrops of detached hills,
and varied by stretches of picturesque river scenery along the Nam
Teng and Nam Pang.
The only large lake in the States is the Inle in Yawnghwe, about
12 miles long and 6 broad, draining by the Nam Pilu river into the
Salween. Two smaller lakes are situated in the north-east of Mongnai
and in Hsahtung.
Not much is known of the geology of the Southern Shan States,
except along the section east and west of Taunggyi, where the rocks
have been classified as follows'. The oldest rocks consist of gneisses
with veins of syenite and granite, and are exposed only along the
western edge of the plateau. Beyond these, limestone is the pre-
vailing rock, the lower portion probably corresponding to the Devonian
limestone of the Northern Shan States, but it includes also fossiliferous
beds of Permian age which are found east of Taunggyi. Purple sand-
stones are either faulted or folded in among the limestones, and may
represent the Mesozoic sandstones found between Hsipaw and Lashio.
Sub-recent beds of conglomerate sands and loams occupy longitudinal
valleys between the ridges of limestone.
Along the western border runs a belt of tarai forest reaching to
about 2,000 feet, of which the most conspicuous constituents are
bamboos, Dipterocarpus, Dillenia, and climbers like Spatholobus and
Conaea toluentosa. From 2,500 to 4,000 feet the hills are clad with
vegetation of a different character and composed of much larger trees,
comprising such genera as Schima, Saurauja, Turpinia, Dalbergia,
Caesadpinia, Bauhinia, Terminalia, Lagerstroemia, Strychnos, and
Quercus. Several arboreous Compositae are also to be found in this
' C. S. Middlemiss, General Report, Geological Survey of India, i899-igoo,
p. 112.
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