Page:Prehistoric Ancient And Hindu India.djvu/24

4 The ancient sea has gradually dried up and the basins of the great rivers have been filled with alluvium brought down during thousands of years. Rajputana has remained barren and arid, as no freshwater stream flows through it to make its soil fertile and productive. The bed of the ancient sea was uncovered, and the vast sandy plain, which once formed the ocean bed, now constitutes the great Indian Desert lying between the provinces of Malwa and the Panjab. A remnant of the ancient sea now forms the salt lake of Sambhar near Ajmer and the great salt marsh, called the Rann of Cutch (Sanskrit Irina), between the mouths of the Indus and the peninsula of Kathiawad. The second region is bounded on the north by the jungles at the foot of the Himalayas, on the east by the mountain ranges which separate Bengal from Burma, on the west by the mountains of Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and on the south by the jungles on the northern slope of the Vindhya ranges.

The third region consists of the great plateau in the centre of the Indian Peninsula. The plateau rises abruptly at the end of the vast plain through which the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Indus flow. The country between the basins of these rivers and the slope of the tableland is full of dense jungle and low hills. The Vindhya Mountains run through the centre of this belt of hills and forests. They consist of two or more parallel ranges of hills, running from Rajmahal at the western extremity of Bengal to the Gulf of Cambay. The plateau itself is a triangle, smaller than the peninsula, two sides of which are almost parallel to the eastern and western coasts of India. This plateau is much less fertile than the second region and consists of a vast undulating plain intersected by smaller plateaux, which very often rise in two or three tiers. The western edge of this plateau is higher than the eastern, and these two edges are bounded by mountain chains called the Eastern and the Western Ghats. The plateau slopes from west to east, and the apex of the triangle is formed by a high projection which runs due south from the Nilgiris and divides Travancore from the British province of Madras. This projection is called the Anaimalai Hills. The soil of the plateau varies in different regions. The western part is formed of