HILVERSUM, a town in the province of North Holland, 18 m. by rail S.E. of Amsterdam. It is connected with Amsterdam by a steam tramway, passing by way of the small fortified towns of Naarden and Muiden on the Zuider Zee. Pop. (1900) 20,238. It is situated in the middle of the Gooi, a stretch of hilly country extending from the Zuider Zee to about 5 m. south of Hilversum, and composed of pine woods and sandy heaths. A convalescent home, the Trompenberg, was established here in 1874, and there are a town hall, middle-class and technical schools, and various places of worship, including a synagogue. Hilversum manufactures large quantities of floor-cloths and horse-blankets.
HIMALAYA, the name given to the mountains which form the northern boundary of India. The word is Sanskrit and literally signifies “snow-abode,” from him, snow, and álaya, abode, and might be translated “snowy-range,” although that expression is perhaps more nearly the equivalent of Himachal, another Sanskrit word derived from him, snow, and áchal, mountain, which is practically synonymous with Himalaya and is often used by natives of northern India. The name was converted by the Greeks into Emodos and Imaos.
Modern geographers restrict the term Himalaya to that portion of the mountain region between India and Tibet enclosed within the arms of the Indus and the Brahmaputra. From the bend of the Indus southwards towards the plains of the Punjab to the bend of the Brahmaputra southwards towards the plains of Assam, through a length of 1500 m., is Himachal or Himalaya. Beyond the Indus, to the north-west, the region of mountain ranges which stretches to a junction with the Hindu Kush south of the Pamirs, is usually known as Trans-Himalaya. Thus the Himalaya represents the southern face of the great central upheaval—the plateau of Tibet—the northern face of which is buttressed by the Kuen Lun.
Throughout this vast space of elevated plateau and mountain face geologists now trace a system of main chains, or axes, extending from the Hindu Kush to Assam, Structure of the Himalaya. arranged in approximately parallel lines, and traversed at intervals by main lines of drainage obliquely. Godwin-Austen indicates six of these geological axes as follows:
1. The main Central Asian axis, the Kuen Lun forming the northern edge or ridge of the Tibetan plateau.
2. The Trans-Himalayan chain of Muztagh (or Karakoram), which is lost in the Tibetan uplands, passing to the north of the sources of the Indus.
3. The Ladakh chain, partly north and partly south of the Indus—for that river breaks across it about 100 m. above Leh. This chain continues south of the Tsanpo (or Upper Brahmaputra), and becomes part of the Himalayan system.
4. The Zaskar, or main chain of the Himalaya, i.e. the “snowy range” par excellence which is indicated by Nanga Parbat (overlooking the Indus), and passes in a south-east direction to the southern side of the Deosai plains. Thence, bending slightly south, it extends in the line of snowy peaks which are seen from Simla to the famous peaks of Gangotri and Nanda Devi. This is the best known range of the Himalaya.
5. The outer Himalaya or Pir Panjal-Dhaoladhar ridge.