XXX. ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS — APPENDIX. 



The object of the basin system is to control and regulate 

 these periodic inundations, and consists of forming a chain 

 of basins on the land bordering on the river by constructing 

 suitable embankments, regulators and canals. 



Some such system of control may have been applied to 

 the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia, but the great 

 prosperity and fertility of Babylonia appear to have been 

 •due to a more advanced system of irrigation. According 

 to the Bible, and to a record said to be older, it appears 

 that Hammurabi, one of the kings of Babylonia, made a 

 canal and constructed branch canals distributing the water 

 over the desert plains. The inscription describing these 

 ancient works existed 2200 B.O., and it states that the 

 water supply was unfailing, thus implying that the canals 

 were what we now call perennial. 



So that the system of perennial canals which has been 

 so successfully introduced into India by British engineers 

 probably owes its origin to the hydraulic engineers of 

 ancient Ohaldea. 



Irrigation in India. 



It appears that far back in ancient history man has 

 devised many systems for carrying water to laud under 

 cultivation in order to increase the fertility of the soil, and 

 in no country is this ancient system of irrigation better 

 exemplified than in India. 



The Hindu races were probably mainly responsible for 

 the introduction of irrigation in India, and the extent to 

 which it was and is still practised, is governed by the 

 deficiency or abundance of the rainfall and the supply of 

 water carried by the rivers and water courses of the 

 •country. The methods resorted to by the natives of India 

 for obtaining water for irrigation purposes were by means 

 ■of wells, storage tanks, and inundation canals derived from 

 rivers. An inundation canal can only be supplied with 



