The Western Ghats (Sahyadri in Sanskrit) start from the south of the Tapti valley, and run south through the districts of Khandesh, Nasik, Thana, Satara, Ratnagiri, Kanara and Malabar, and the states of Cochin and Travancore, meeting the Eastern Ghats at an angle near Cape Comorin. The range of the Western Ghats extends uninterruptedly, with the exception of a gap or valley 25 m. across, known as the Palghat gap, through which runs the principal railway of the south of India. The length of the range is 800 m. from the Tapti to the Palghat gap, and south of this about 200 m. to the extreme south of the peninsula. In many parts there is only a narrow strip of coast between the hills and the sea; at one point they rise in magnificent precipices and headlands out of the ocean. The average elevation is 3000 ft., precipitous on the western side facing the sea, but with a more gradual slope on the east to the plains below. The highest peaks in the northern section are Kalsubai, 5427 ft.; Harischandragarh, 4691 ft.; and Mahabaleshwar, where is the summer capital of the government of Bombay, 4700 ft. South of Mahabaleshwar the elevation diminishes, but again increases, and attains its maximum towards Coorg, where the highest peaks vary from 5500 to 7000 ft., and where the main range joins the interior Nilgiri hills. South of the Palghat gap, the peaks of the Western Ghats rise as high as 8000 ft. The geological formation is trap in the northern and gneiss in the southern section. GHAZALI [Muhammad ibn Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali] (1058-1111), Arabian philosopher and theologian, was born at Tus, and belonged to a family of Ghazala (near Tus) distinguished for its knowledge of canon law. Educated at first in Tus, then in Jorjan, and again in Tus, he went to college at Nishapur, where he studied under Juwaini (known as the Imam ul-Haramain) until 1085, when he visited the celebrated vizier Nizam ul-Mulk, who appointed him to a professorship in his college at Bagdad in 1091. Here he was engaged in writing against the Isma'ilites (Assassins). After four years of this work he suddenly gave up his chair, left home and family and gave himself to an ascetic life. This was due to a growing scepticism, which caused him much mental unrest and which gradually gave way to mysticism. Having secured his chair for his brother he went to Damascus, Jerusalem, Hebron, Mecca, Medina and Alexandria, studying, meditating and writing in these cities. In 1106 he was tempted to go to the West, where the Moravid (Almoravid) reformation was being led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, with whom he had been in correspondence earlier. Yusuf, however, died in this year, and Ghazali abandoned his idea. At the wish of the sultan Malik Shah he again undertook professorial work, this time in the college of Nizam ul-Mulk at Nishapur, but returned soon after to Tus, where he died in December 1111.