{"book":"adl0980","page":59,"text":"In these passes, and in the northern Kunar Valley, are traces of glaciers, and at heights above 16,400ft. glaciers may still be found similar to those of the later part of the Third Geological Era. It is due to the melting of these that we get the tributaries of the Amu and Sind on either side of the Eastern Hindukush.\nThe almond shape of the Western Hindukush enjoys an average height of 15,600ft., but its lower passes have been employed by travellers and invaders over the ages. The Khawak Pass, the most easterly point of the Western Hindukush, reaches to 11,800ft.\nOther passes are Tal, Koshan, Char Dar, Dandan Shikan and Shibar.\nKoh-i-Baba\nThis range constitutes the central formation of Afghan mountains, separated from the Hindukush by the Bamyan Valley, and extending roughly across the middle of the country. With an average height of 13,100ft. above sea-level, some of its peaks do in fact attain 16,400 ft. and more, but the Shah Fouladi, at 16,864ft., is its highest.\nThe range itself provides the water for a considerable number of waterways, amongst them the Band-i-Amir, the Hari Rud, and the tributaries of the Helmand, all of which are conceived in the Koh-i-Baba slopes.\nThe passes are of great importance as a means of communication, and being more accessible than those of the Hindukush are very attractive to travellers.\nParapomisus\nTo the west of the Koh-i-Baba is yet another colossal range, the Parapomisus (Feroz Koh); known to the north of the Hari Rud as Koh-i-Saffid, and to the south as the Western Sia-Koh. The rivers radiating from these flow north towards the Aral and Caspian Seas, and from the southern slopes go eastwards to the Helmand.\nTir Band-i-Turkestan\nNorth of the Parapomisus range, and above the valleys of the Murghab River\n\ncomes the Tir Band-i-Turkestan range, running horizontally between Longitudes 66 and 63. But although it seems an independent chain it is in reality an extension of the central core of the Hindukush. Some 180 miles in length, the average height of its mountains is only half that of its sister Hindukush.\nOne of the characteristics of this range is the dissimilarity between its northern and southern slopes. The latter have eroded and changed over the years; whilst the northern faces remain intact as a result of the sand deposited on them by the winds sweeping down from the Turkestan desert.\nSia Koh and Spinghar\nBack to the east of the Koh-i-Baba, just beneath the lower Hindukush, are yet two further ranges; the Sia Koh commencing in Swat and extending westwards through Kunar and Kabul to disappear in the Logar Valley; and the Spinghar stretching westwards from Peshawar also terminating in Logar. Amongst the passes of the Spinghar is the famous Khyber, and it is in these two ranges that many Pakhtun tribes reside.\nWestern Sulaiman\nFlanking the south-eastern corner of the country lies the Western Sulaiman range, extending through to the Eastern Sulaiman in Waziristan and Baluchistan. These mountains are perhaps the most attractive in Afghanistan, enhanced as they are by forests and fertile valleys.\nWATERWAYS\nAs regards rivers Afghanistan can be divided into three main basins—the Helmand and Indus basins to the south, and the Aral-Caspian basin to the north.\nA great many rivers emanating from Pamir and the northern Hindukush, from the Koh-i-Baba, and the Western Sia Koh flow towards the Caspian basin. Some of these, like the Amu, finally flow right into the Caspian or Aral Seas; whilst others, like the Murghab and Hari Rud, have now ceased to do so and disappear in the deserts and steppes.\n\n56","chars":3593,"image":"https://storage.googleapis.com/adl-page-images/adl0980/00059.jpg","first_page":1,"last_page":93,"title":"Afghan progress in the fourth year plan","permalink":"https://afghanpress.org/book/adl0980/59","canvas":"https://afghanpress.org/iiif/adl0980/canvas/59","source":"https://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/books/adl0980/","source_pdf":"https://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/pdf/adl0980_download.pdf","rights":{"image":{"statement":"Public domain. NYU states: \"All works presented on this website are, unless otherwise indicated, in the public domain. The images available on this website may be freely reproduced, distributed and transmitted by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial.\"","uri":"http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/","holder":"New York University Libraries","source":"https://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/about.html","delivery":"Images are served from a copy mirrored by this project, not from NYU's servers, under the reproduction terms above.","endorsement":"This is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by New York University."},"text":{"statement":"Machine-generated transcription, dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. No warranty of accuracy: see the provenance block on every page.","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/","holder":"Steps Ventures"}},"provenance":{"text_produced_by":"gemini-3.1-pro-preview","thinking_level":"low","read_completed":"2026-08-09","per_page_confidence":null,"per_page_confidence_note":"Not recorded during the corpus run. No calibrated per-page score exists, and none is estimated here.","human_reviewed":false,"accuracy_context":"Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting.","primary_source":"The page image. The text is an index into it."}}