340 GANGETIC DELTA. Chap. XXXI. 



physical features of the several parts, will appear most 

 extraordinary. I have stated that the difference between 

 the northern and southern halves of the delta is so great, 

 that, were all depressed and their contents fossilised, the 

 geologist who examined each by itself, would hardly recog- 

 nise the two parts as belonging to one epoch ; and the diffe- 

 rence between the east and west halves of the lower delta 

 is equally remarkable. 



The total breadth of the delta is 260 miles, from Chitta- 

 gong to the mouth of the Hoogly, divided longitudinally 

 by the Megna : all to the west of that river presents a 

 luxuriant vegetation, while to the east is a bare muddy 

 expanse, with no trees or shrubs but what are planted. 

 On the west coast the tides rise twelve or thirteen feet, on 

 the east, from forty to eighty. On the west, the water is 

 salt enough for mangroves to grow for fifty miles up the 

 Hoogly ; on the east, the sea coast is too fresh for that 

 plant for ten miles south of Chittagong. On the west, 

 fifty inches is the Cuttack fall of rain ; on the east, 90 

 to 120 at Noacolly and Chittagong, and 200 at Arracan. 

 The east coast is annually visited by earthquakes, which 

 are rare on the west ; and lastly, the majority of the great 

 trees and shrubs carried down from the Cuttack and 

 Orissa forests, and deposited on the west coast of the 

 delta, are not only different in species, but in natural 

 order, from those that the Fenny and Chittagong rivers 

 bring down from the jungles.* 



We were glad to find at Noacolly that our observations 



The Cuttack forests are composed " of teak, Sal, Sissoo, ebony, Pentaptera, 

 Buchanania, and other trees of a dry soil, and that require a dry season alternating 

 with a wet one. These are unknown in the Chittagong forests, which have Jarool 

 (Lagerstrcemia) Mesua, Dipterocarpi, nutmegs, oaks of several kinds, and many 

 other trees not known in the Cuttack forests, and all typical of a perennially 

 humid atmosphere. 



