1868. | Artificial Irrigation. 483 
ceased to flow in Hurriana about 1707, and at Suffidum in 1740; 
so that the Mogul canals became practically extinct nearly in the 
middle of the eighteenth century. 
Irrigation works seem to have been very general in the penin- 
sula of India under its native rulers, but in this part of India tank 
irrigation was, perhaps, more general than canal irrigation, although 
there were evidently many works also constructed of the latter class; 
and some very interesting ones in the southern Maratha country are 
clearly traceable to the Hindoo dynasty. “In the delta lands of 
Tanjore,” says Colonel Baird Smith, “it is probable that artificial 
irrigation was contemporaneous with agriculture itself; but the 
first marked development of that native system, upon which modern 
improvements have been grafted, is traceable to a period corre- 
sponding with the close of the second century of our own era, 
and to the reign of a certain Rajah Veeranum, to whom many of 
the gigantic pagodas, as well as the great irrigation channels in 
Tanjore, are attributed.” 
Besides canals which were taken from the rivers of the district, 
tanks were (as we have already stated) largely employed in Southern 
India for purposes of irrigation; and some of these were formed on 
such a scale as fairly to be denominated gigantic. The embank- 
ment of the Poonary Tank, in the Trichinopoly district, for example, 
was 30 miles in length, that of the Veeranum Tank about 10 miles; 
and numerous others of scarcely inferior dimensions are scattered 
over the face of the country. All these tanks were provided with 
sluices for distributing the water to the fields, with escape weirs for 
regulating the surface level of the water, and with other necessary 
works of detail. The authority previously quoted refers in one of 
his writings to works of a similar character which were in existence 
in the delta of the Kistnah when the country fell into our hands in 
1766. In Guntoor, two ancient channels, having all the charac- 
teristic marks of natural rivers, traverse the district in different 
directions, and for ages have been subservient to the irrigation of 
the delta. All the irrigated portion of the Madras presidency 
abounds in tanks, and the extent to which irrigation there is ex- 
tended is truly extraordinary. An imperfect record of the number 
of tanks in fourteen districts shows them to amount to no less than 
43,000 in repair, and 10,000 out of repair; or 53,000 in all. 
In this hasty review of ancient irrigation works, an attempt has 
been made to record, so far as information has been obtainable, some 
account of the dates at which they were introduced into Hurope. 
With respect to India, the foregoing may be taken as a very brief 
but concise statement of all that is known regarding their origin in 
that country, and their progress under native dynasties. 
In all civilized countries where irrigation has once been intro- 
duced, that system of promoting agriculture has been promoted 
