GENERAL CONSIDERATION. 15 



from ruin during the exceptionally dry years which must occur at 

 intervals, — intervals which are irregular so far as has yet been ob- 

 served. These conditions prevail over very large areas in India, 

 and wherever sufficient provision has not been made to suit the 

 requirements of the case, it is inevitable that ruination should visit 

 them at intervals in the shape of the terrible calamities too well 

 known in India during famine years. The situation of the regions 

 thus precariously situated can be recognised by examining any map 

 that indicates the distribution of the rainfall, such as the beautiful 

 maps published in the Statistical Atlas of India, 1 It is probably 

 in those regions where the average amount of annual rainfall is 

 between twenty and forty inches that the situation is most precarious. 

 The regions most critically stuated are, — first, the countries nearest 

 the Indian Desert, that is portions of the Punjab, of Rajputana, of the 

 North-West Provinces, and # of Gujarat ; secondly, large districts 

 in Central India and in the Central Provinces together with part of 

 the Deccan east of the Western Ghats, forming a considerable 

 proportion of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, and of the 

 States of Hyderabad and Mysore. It is only with respect to these 

 critically placed districts that the question of a possible supply from 

 artesian sources for irrigation purposes is of any vital interest. As 

 already pointed out, the desert areas are safe from severe famine, 

 because the portion which is cultivated depends on perennial supplies 

 of water independent of annual variations in local rainfall,— whether 

 this supply be the mighty stream of some great river like that of 

 the Indus, which spreads over Lower Sind the rain and melted snow 

 of an immense catchment area in the Himalayas, or whether it be 

 the small but constant supply of a "karez." The more humid tracts 

 where the rainfall is more than sufficient are equally out of question 

 in the present enquiry. But in those vast regions where the rain- 

 fall is usually only just sufficient to supply the needs of agriculture, 

 and where recourse must be had to some means of storage so as to 



1 Statistical Atlas of India, Second Edition. Calcutta, 1895. 



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