202 GNATS Oil MOSQUITOES— CHAPTER VIII 



is mostly left to the native contractor who takes up the job, 

 and all he has to consider is how he may place the required 

 number of cubic feet of soil in the place indicated, with 

 the least possible expenditure of money or thought. 



The extent to which this burrowing for building material 

 has been carried, in and about many Indian towns, is 

 incredible, and the haphazard way in which it has been 

 permitted to be carried on has resulted in the absolute 

 wasting of large areas of valuable, culturable land, in a 

 country where it can ill be spared. As a general rule, these 

 "tanks" are far too dirty to favour malaria, for it is not 

 uncommon to find that some zealous amateur sanitarian 

 has deliberately carried the foul bazaar drainage into them ; 

 but there are exceptions to this, and there can be no doubt 

 that the taking of earth for building and domestic purposes 

 should be systematised by local bye-law in every Indian 

 municipal area ; for there are other tropical diseases than 

 malaria, and the foul emanations of these lakes of putridity 

 cannot fail to be harmful, even where they do not form 

 nurseries for the transporters of malaria. The main obstacle 

 to the removal of these tanks lies in the difiticulty of 

 obtaining, within any reasonable distance, sufficient soil to 

 fill them in ; but it is not really necessary to fill them up 

 to the level of the ground around them ; for, provided that 

 all surface drainage into it be diverted, any given area is 

 quite capable of absorbing all the rain that actually falls 

 within its own limits, and provided it be carefully levelled, 

 no permanent puddles will result, however low-lying it may 

 be, at any rate in Upper India. Now, without exception, 

 these hollows are very u'regular, not only in outline, but in 

 depth, and it is only their deepest parts that remain full for 

 any considerable length of time, so that the only practicable 

 way of dealing with them is not to attempt to fill them up, 

 but to level the area they include ; obtaining the earth 

 required to fill in the deepest parts by cutting away from 

 the sides so as to bring them to a regular outline, and slope 

 of bank. 



A good deal of spoil too can usually be obtained by 

 digging cuttings to cut off the drainage of the neighbouring 



