42

INDIA

we left on the north. Those great evolutionary processes
of Nature which moulded the eastern edge of the great
Baluch-Afghan plateau into a succession of gigantic
wrinkles (each wrinkle represented by a long narrow
mountain ridge or upfold) like the sand ripples of a
receding tide, were applied to the same general purpose
and effect along a line which extends from the Kaisargarh
 Mountain near the Gomal through Southern
Baluchistan to the Persian border; and thence, with
certain modifications (here and there following the course
of ‘the Persian Gulf littoral), to Western Persia and the
Caucasus. What may have been the nature of the
primeval agency which cracked these wrinkles transversely
 across their axis, or permitted all the main
arteries of drainage to maintain a course almost at
right angles to the strike of them, may be still open to
question. It is enough to note that the general conformation
 of the mountains in Southern Baluchistan is
similar to that in the northern section of the province.
Long narrow valleys lead from Quetta first southwards,
rising for about ninety miles to Kalat, and then, falling and
bending with graceful curve from their meridional direction
to a westerly trend, they run parallel to the coast of the
Arabian Sea through Makran to the Persian border.
From the close packed mountain regions south of Kalat
a section of this border conformation continues its course
due southward, culminating in ‘the Kirthar range, and
thus determines the shape of the Indus Valley. Between
these southerly and westerly extensions space is gained
for a triangle of comparatively low country which lies
in the fork between them. This little triangular space
is the frontier state of Las Bela, which consists chiefly
of the delta of the Purali River (the ancient Arabis)
draining into the Arabian Sea at Sonmiéni, not far north
of Karachi.
The state of Kalat lies at a general elevation which is
higher by more than 1ooo feet than Quetta. The fortress
of Kalat may be said to define the geographical “hub”—
the great central watershed—of Southern Baluchistan,