170 HAPPY INDIA 



breeds there and carries malaria from man to man 

 and from house to house. This has happened near 

 the town of Amritsar in the Punjab. A great 

 irrigation canal passes within three miles of that 

 city. The canal is not water-tight, and water escapes 

 through the bottom and sides. This water escape, 

 and also the copious use of the water for irrigation, 

 has raised the water-level of the country around. 

 Before the canal was made this sub-soil water-level 

 was 60 feet below the surface, that is to say it would 

 have been necessary to dig a well 60 feet in order 

 to get a supply of water. Now the water-level 

 has risen to within 2 or 3 feet of the surface, 

 and in the rainy season the land becomes a swamp. 

 Mosquitoes breed in these swamps and poison the 

 people of Amritsar, and the number of deaths from 

 malaria has been considerable, occasionally very 

 serious indeed. The evil is known, the people die, 

 but the Government is very very slow in trying to 

 make a remedy, and yet the remedy is also known 

 and could be put into practice without delay. This 

 was described by Mr. Stephen Leggett, Mem. Inst. 

 C.E., in a paper he read at the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers on March 8, 1921. 



On the vast plains of India the drainage problem 

 is not always a very simple one, and to make drainage 

 canals is not always easy, even if it is possible. Some 

 engineers have tried to lower the water-level in the 

 subsoil by means of wells and pumps. But pumping 

 is a very expensive operation if it is done by human 

 labour or by means of oxen. It only becomes practi- 



