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 204 THE PEAKS AND MOUNTAIN RANGES

Himalaya is consequently reserved for the supreme range which extends from the western borders of China, carries the great peaks, Mount Everest and Kinchinjunga, and runs through Kumaon and Kashmir to Nanga Parbat, and possibly farther. This is the culminating range of the earth’s surface. The range to the north, on which stands K? and some satellite peaks of 26,000 feet, is neither so long nor has it quite such lofty peaks. It is known as the Karakoram range because a pass called the Karakoram Pass crosses it.

The range, however, lies far at the back of Kashmir, and it is not so much with it as with the true Himalaya range that we are here concerned. The mountain ranges which encircle the valley of Kashmir are the final prolongations of that mighty range which runs from the borders of Burma thirteen hundred miles away, and bifurcating at the Sutlej River, forms with its subsidiary spurs the cradle in which the Kashmir valley is set.

The southern branch of this bifurcation is known as the Pir Panjal range, and is that which bounds Kashmir on the south. It is the largest of all the lesser Himalayan ranges, and even at its extremity in Kashmir it carries many peaks exceed- ing 15,000 feet; the Tatakuti Peak, 80 miles