33G PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [^V r - ^* 



diately suggest itself that the easiest escape from these difficulties 

 would have been to break into that long low range of jheels behind 

 Mahmudpore, and so get to the sea without difficulty. As I have, 

 however, tried to explain above, water resists water better than 

 land. It broke several times into the low land, but was on every 

 occasion repelled, being forced to deposit its silt so as to make a 

 barrier against its own incursions. 



The only remaining course, and the one that eventually was 

 adopted, was to seize on a small khal, or creek, called the Elian 

 Khalee, and widen it for the purpose. This was not difficult, as 

 the land was low and friable, no great river having come that way 

 in recent times. 



In liennell's time the creek was so insignificant that it is not 

 mentioned in his maps, and even in 1818-20 it was so small that it 

 could be easily leaped on horseback ; when I first knew it in 1830-33 

 it was sweeping through the country with two-mile oscillations, as 

 regular as if they -had been drawn by hand. It was nearly 800 yards 

 wide, and deeper in proportion than the older rivers. It was, in fact, 

 the only river that all the year round was open for steam -navigation 

 between Calcutta and the upper provinces. After being rejoined by 

 the Novo Gunga and Barassya, it increases its reaches to three miles, 

 and carries this oscillation to the sea — certainly the largest and finest 

 of the delta-rivers after the great Poddah* or Megna. 



Since I surveyed it in 1833 it has been getting straitened in its 

 bed, and it evidently has been embanking itself too rapidly. Its 

 reaches have lost their beautiful regularity and have become con- 

 torted; and one of them has stretched about two miles to the 

 eastward, so as to cut off the Muddenderry reaches. If it has 

 accomplished this — which I believe it has — it may be able to open 

 out the lower part of the Barassya Biver, and get into the low country 

 behind; and then, perhaps, joining some of the old branches of the 

 Ganges which existed in Bennell's time, so get to the sea. 



If this should be accomplished, the Goraie and the Upper Coomar, 

 with the Chandna, will practically become the great outlets of the 

 Ganges, and the whole of the eastern half of the delta will then be 

 abandoned to the Brahmapootra. This will certainly be the case if 

 the Ganges' waters find a sufficient outlet in this direction; and the 

 chances are so equally balanced that the struggle is extremely inter- 

 esting at the present time. 



7. Natore Group of Rivers. — The Ganges at Jaffiergunge, united 

 with the Natore rivers at Oorasagur, is so nearly a match for the 

 Brahmapootra, that the latter river is attempting to escape the conflict 

 by cutting off the angle at Attree, and joining the Dallaserrai through 

 the Elamjanee Biver. To do this effectually, however, it must open 



* Poddah, or Padnia (the Lotus), is the stream, running nearly east and west, 

 by which the Bhagaruttee, or true Ganges, above Bauleah at some recent time 

 connected itself with the Brahmapootra somewhere above Jaffiergunge. The 

 tradition of this junction taking place is quite distinct in the minds of the 

 natives inhabiting its banks, who do not consequently look on the Poddah as a 

 sacred stream. Still it must have taken place before the diversion of the Assam 

 river into Sylhet. 



