Herbert Wilhelmy

Herbert Wilhelmy

Herbert Wilhelmy (February 4, 1910 - February 1, 2003) was a German geographer. Wilhelmy has made significant impact in the area of Latin American regional geography, with a focus on climatic geomorphology and, especially, morphogenetic urban geography.

Quotes

• In the local usage, the lower course [i.e. the Nara] is also given the name Hakra. The local people were probably aware of the continuity of the entire line of valleys and that a single river flowed here once upon a time.
  • Wilhelmy, Herbert, ‘The Ancient River Valley on the Eastern Border of the Indus Plain and the Sarasvatī Problem’, in Vedic Sarasvatī°, p. 97. in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• ‘This early confluence of the Sutlej and Beas was by no means the end of the matter. Both rivers have separated and rejoined several times in the last 2000 years.’
  • Wilhelmy, Herbert, ‘The Shifting River: Studies in the History of the Indus Valley’, Universitas, vol. 10, 1967, no. 1, p. 60.in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• The extraordinary breadth of the Hakra bed, which is not less than 3 km over a distance of 250 km and is even 6 km in some places, must therefore be due to the flood discharge from the big glacial rivers coming down from the Himalayas . . . The small Siwalik rivers would not have been enough to supply all the water in the Sarasvatī. In other words, the Sarasvatī must have had a source river in the Himalaya; the Sarasvatī must have lost this source river either due to a diversion or tapping, as indicated by the sharp bend near Rupar.... There should no longer be any doubt that Sutlej water flowed into the Hakra at three different places in an earlier period . . . In the very distant past, the Jumna [Yamuna] was certainly one of the big water suppliers of the ‘Lost River of Sind’. The water flowed through an old 1.5 km wide bed of the Chautang.. . . This dry bed is indeed the holy river ‘Sarasvatī’ . . .; once upon a time, this was a genuine solitary river which reached the ocean without any tributaries on its long way through the desert.
  • Wilhelmy, Herbert, ‘The Ancient River Valley on the Eastern Border of the Indus Plain and the Sarasvatī Problem’, in Vedic Sarasvatī°, p. 99 (partial English translation of ‘Das Urstromtal am Ostrand der Indusebene und das Sarasvatī Problem’, in Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie, N.F. Supplementband 8, 1969, pp. 76-93). in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.