48 CLIMATE AND RESOURCES OF 



sun on the matters deposited by them causes malaria and 

 disease, as in the case of jheels. 



A marked case of this kind lately occurred in the district 

 of Moradabad. The river Sote rises in that district, in the 

 plains, and flows through the district of Budaon to the Ganges. 

 In 1871 a part of the valley of this river in the Moradabad 

 district became very unhealthy, nearly the whole of the popu- 

 lation being prostrated with fever shortly after the end of the 

 rains. On inquiry it appeared that the country on both sides 

 of the river at that part was very low and flat; the valley 

 below was rather contracted, the water could not run off as 

 quickly as it was received, and the low flat land was under 

 water for some time ; this was where the unhealthiness was 

 the greatest. Further down the river and all through the 

 Budaon district, where the river keeps in a better defined 

 channel, with more abruptly sloping banks, there was no 

 unhealthiness in the valley of this river. I believe the 

 drainage of the unhealthy part of the valley was proposed 

 as a sanitary measure. If carried out, this will be another 

 addition to the many causes we now have tending to desiccate 

 the country and increase the violence and devastating power 

 of the floods. Another case, and one of much greater im- 

 portance, as affecting a larger extent of country and a greater 

 population, is exactly similar, and that is Lower Bengal. 



.The same causes mentioned as affecting the climate in the 

 neighbourhood of jheels, and in the case of the Sote river, are 

 here at work, but on a more gigantic scale. The Ganges 

 cannot carry off the water brought to it as quickly as it 

 receives it ; all Lower Bengal is flooded, and the results are 

 fever and disease spread throughout the country. Increased, 

 or, as it is called, improved surface- drainage in the drainage 

 basin of the Ganges means increased desiccation of the part 

 of the country where it is carried out, and increased floods 



