08 NATURAL HISTORY. 



before reaching the great plain of the Deccan. Their course (as 

 will have been understood from my comparison of them to salmon 

 rivers) is much diversified with rapids, sometimes even with con- 

 siderable falls, with gravelly shallows, and with long pools and reaches. 

 These latter occasionally have alluvial banks and muddy bottoms, but- 

 more commonly the bank is rocky ; the bed of the same nature, with 

 a good deal of gravel ; and the water clear throughout the fine 

 weather, that is, from October to May inclusive. 



There is hardly a siugle river of importance that is not crossed by 

 at least one ancient or modern irrigation weir ; and on some there 

 are many weirs, all of masonry, sometimes very lofty, and in no 

 case that I know, of provided with any sort of a fish-ladder. As 

 many of the tributary torrents as have any stream during the 

 whole or part of the dry season are crossed by many little dams, 

 visually built for the season only, of wattles, mats, and mud or gravel, 

 but sometimes they also are permanent dams of good stonework. 



As each group of these rivers debouches from its gradually 

 widening valleys into the great plain of the Deccan, some one of 

 them, like Aaron's Rod, swallows up the others; and from this point 

 to the eastern boundary of the Presidency its course is generally a 

 huo-e trough about 100 feet deep and half a mile wide, 

 bottomed alternately with sand and mud, and rarely crossed by a 

 bar of basalt, over which the river falls in rapids or a cataract. 



Except at such places the banks are usually of stiff alluvial soil , 

 scarped on the outside of each curve of the stream, where it runs 

 deepest and strongest, but sloping gradually on the inside of the 

 curve to wide sandbanks bordering on the " dead water." 



The streams which unite to form the Bhima, most of which rise in 

 the Poona District, illustrate the above description well enough ; but 

 the finest falls on any large river easily accessible from Bombay are 

 those on the Godavery at Phultamba. 



Before dismissing the Deccan rivers it should be added that each 

 of them after leaving this Presidency is barred by great irrigation 

 works, which completely prevent the ascent of fish from the sea 

 from their lower waters. 



Besides its rivers, the Deccan has a considerable number of 

 artificial lakes and ponds, or, as we call them, tanks. Some of these, 

 especially those at Khadakwasla, near Poona, and Ekruk, near 

 Sholapur, are of considerable size, and a good many, even of the 

 lesser, are perennial. But the greater number are reduced to mere 



