GENERAL CONSIDERATION. IJ 



unusually regular structure, so that the bed should be available at a 

 reasonable depth over a large area of the country. Under the best 

 conditions possible, the intake area must be limited to the outcrop 

 of the permeable stratum, and this must always be very small com- 

 pared with the surface of country underlaid by the artesian reservoir, 

 so that even if exceptional conditions of storage allowed the supply 

 of several years to be expended in one season, the amount thus 

 made available would still remain very small compared with the needs 

 of the large area where irrigation is required. Besides / although the 

 amount of artesian water available in India has scarcely received a 

 fair test, yet it may be confidently affirmed that nowhere do such ex- 

 ceptional conditions occur as those outlined above. In the districts 

 liable to famine in particular, there is not the slightest indication of 

 anything of the sort. If we look to other countries for information, 

 there is none perhaps from which such useful lessons can be derived 

 as from the United States of North America. In no other region of 

 the globe are artesian conditions developed in such a favourable 

 manner, and nowhere perhaps have they been developed so system- 

 atically. From the oldest cambrian up to those glacial deposits 

 which, in a geological sense, were deposited only yesterday, every 

 system of strata has yielded artesian water in abundance. The 

 capabilities of these resources with respect to irrigation have been 

 very fully investigated, for, just like India. 



Examples from North J J & > ) J J 



America. North America includes large portions in which 



the rainfall is insufficient or only just sufficient to provide for the 

 needs of agriculturists. Major J. W. Powell, the late Director of 

 the United States Geological Survey, in his " Statement before the 

 Committee on Irrigation of the House of Representatives," in 1890 

 has fully examined all the aspects of the question. His report,, 

 the outcome of many years of studies specially devoted to these 

 matters, deals with the question of irrigation considered from a 

 theoretical, practical, and legislative point of view. 1 In this work 



1 " The Arid Lands." Eleventh Annual Report of the Director of the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey. Part II, Irrigation, pp. 203-289. 



{ '7 ) 



