1833.] The Ancient Canals in the Delhi Territory. 107 
miles south-east of Bhatnir, whence it has been traced by Mr. W. 
Fraser to open on the valley of the Satlej, north-east of, and about 20 
miles from Bahawalpir ; thus securing an outlet for the waters, should 
such ever be needful: but as the Ghaghar river, which receives the 
drainage of the hills from Ndhan to Plassta, and generally of the 
country between the Jamna and the Satlej, does not in the heaviest 
season pass in force beyond Bhatnir, no stream by the Chéitang is 
likely to effect the junction, and the period when this river ceased to 
flow as one is far beyond record, and belongs to the fabulous periods 
of which even tradition is scanty. 
It may not be out of place here to advert to the causes which are 
even now operating to destroy the utility of the Ghaghar and such 
rivers, and tending to extend the limits of the desert, which forms our 
north-western boundary in this quarter. What the country about and 
west of Rdneah, now inhabited by the Bhattts, has been, may be in- 
ferred from the numerous sites of towns and villages scattered over 
a tract, where now fixed habitations are hardly to be met with. I allude 
only to the vicinity of the bed of the Ghaghar, with which I am per- 
sonally acquainted ;—when the depopulation took place, lam not prepared 
to say; it must have been long since, as none of the village sites present 
one brick standing on another, above ground,—though, in digging be- 
neath it, very frequent specimens of an old brick are met with, about 
16 inches by 10 inches, and3 inches thick*, of most excellent quality: 
buildings erected of such materials could not have passed away in any 
short period. The evident cause of this depopulation of the country is the 
absolute absence of water, most probably the effect of the system now 
in use in the Sikh states, through which all these rivers pass from the 
mountains ;—namely, the erection of dams of earth across the streams at 
all favorable points, to raise the water so high as to flow over the face 
of the country and irrigate it, the surplus escaping by the sides till 
stopped by other dams, and so on, it might almost be said, ad infini- 
tum. 
It will easily be conceived, that in forming this string of lakes, the 
consumption of water by absorption and evaporation disposes of the 
greater portion, whilst the irrigation takes a very small share, which 
could be equally well, though more expensively, drawn off by small 
canals from the main stream, leaving the latter open to proceed onward 
* Such bricks were all found marked thus Q evidently by a revolution of the 
fingers extended with the thumb as a centre, and gradually drawn round and up to 
the thumb. Similar bricks of an age anterior to the Mahomedan conquest, have 
been excavated at Hansi. 
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