INDIA

The total area of the Indian Empire approaches 1% million
of square miles, and its total population is about 280
millions of souls, considerably “ more than double Gibbon'’s
estimate of 120 millions for all the races and nations
which obeyed Imperial Rome.” *
The physiography of the country (regarded as a whole)

IONE {O00 FT

300 NILES

Fic. 1.— he Indo-Gangetic Plain.

s not very complicated. To the north-east and northwest
 are vast elevations of land surface, from the foot of
which the peninsula of India stretches away southwards
in gradually ascending grades. Thus we have on the
two northern sides of the rhomboid, to the north-east
and to the north-west, elevated regions of plateau and
table-land buttressed by mountain systems which form
! Hunter's ¢‘ Imperial Gazetteer,” vol. vi.