UPPER INDIA. 53 



mendation that these districts, which formerly did not suffer 

 from excess of water, should have their suface-drainage, or 

 natural drainage channels improved. This is being done, and 

 the result must be that the rain falling on these districts, or 

 such part of them as have their surf ace- drainage improved) will 

 more quickly find its way to the rivers, and will cause greater 

 floods lower down country and greater damage to Bengal. 

 " Improved surface-drainage," however, is the popular cry of 

 the present time in India. The result of increased drainage 

 facilities near the sources of streams, must be that their beds, 

 which are adapted to carry away a given amount of water 

 gradually finding its way to them, cannot hold the same 

 amount suddenly brought to them, the water must spread and 

 overflow the low-lying lands near them, the banks of the 

 rivers must get worn away by erosion, the rivers get choked 

 up with the silt they have brought down, the debris of the land 

 they have ruined; this raises their beds and reduces the amount 

 of water they are able to carry to the sea, whilst an increased 

 amount is brought to them, causing the floods to extend over 

 an increased area ; bars form across their mouths, and their 

 navigation becomes more and more difficult and dangerous. 



The heat and consequent aridity of the climate (so far as 

 they are due to surface-drainage), will decrease, as surface- 

 drainage is lessened, as will also its other ill consequences, e.g. 

 floods and their attendant evils, &c. On the contrary, as sur- 

 face-drainage is increased, or as it is now the fashion in India 

 to say, improved, all these evils will be exaggerated. Every 

 single field from which loss of water by surface- drainage is 

 prevented, will tend to lessen the ravages of floods. 



Every inch of rainfall lost by surface-drainage from every 

 acre of ground, represents a loss of one hundred tons of 

 water to that acre ; water which that acre (in Upper India at 

 least, and in all countries where during the year there are long 



