ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS —APPENDIX. xli. 



The Kistna Canals have a total length of main line and 

 branches of 325 miles, of which 284 miles are navigable. 

 There are 1,614 miles of distributing channels commanding 

 800,000 acres. Like that of the Godavari, this system gives 

 exceedingly good financial returns. The various head 

 works to the canals, and the under sluices in the river in 

 the Godavari and Kistna systems are excellent examples 

 of their kind. There are some fine examples of under 

 sluices at Shahatope Anicut. 



The most interesting reservoir scheme of irrigation in 

 India is the Periyar system in Madras. This work was 

 designed to irrigate the district of Madura, in Southern 

 India, where the rainfall is scanty and uncertain, and where 

 famines have frequently occurred. This district was 

 formerly watered by the river Vaigai, which draws its 

 supply from a catchment area on the eastern side of the 

 Ghats, and irrigation has been in operation from time 

 immemorial. On the western side of the Ghats the rain- 

 fall is copious and secure, but it passed down the Periyar 

 Channel to the sea unutilized. 



On one portion of the course of the Periyar it is only a 

 few miles from one of the tributaries of the Vaigai, and 

 the project consisted in diverting the surplus waters of the 

 Periyar through the hills which intervene between it and 

 the Vaigai. A reservoir was constructed by Colonel 

 Pennycuick, r.b., by means of a concrete dam 1,241 feet 

 long and 155 feet in height, a tuunel cut in rock through 

 the intervening hills 5,704 feet long, having a cross-sec- 

 tional area of 90 square feet and a fall of 1 in 75, discharges 

 the water into the tributary of the Vaigai. 



