50 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Feb. 



The rooting barrier of the Tipperali hills will prevent any further 

 extension of the delta channels to the east, and even at the present 

 time the waters of the Megna are flowing on a raised bank, formed 

 of its own deposits. It needs but some trifling change, as an unusually 

 great fall of rain or flood, the accidental stranding of drift timber 

 or some equally trivial, or apparently trivial, cause to throw the 

 whole body of water from its present channel to seek another and 

 lower bed in the country to the west. And I think it requires but 

 a very superficial examination of the ground to predict, that a very 

 short time, comparatively speaking, must elapse before the great 

 stream of the united waters of the Ganges and Brahmaputra will 

 find their course to the sea through some channel to the west of the 

 present course. The delta streams will then commence to travel 

 back again over the flat in successive courses, tending gradually 

 to the west, as they have now for generations been travelling 

 towards the east. I think also that the physical outline of 

 the country points to the fact, that for some time the main 

 course of the rivers must assume, on the large scale, the 

 course indicated now by the Gorai and Horungatta to the sea In 

 fact the peculiar physical characteristics of the Backergunge district, 

 in the northern portion of which especially nearly two-thirds of the 

 surface is jheel and marsh, point to the fact that this portion of the 

 delta was from some physical cause or other, which carried the 

 waters past the heads of the streams flowing through, not occupied 

 by the numerous channels of the rivers for as long a period as the 

 districts to the west. The great depression in which this very 

 remarkable series of jheels now lies, is as I believe, only a part 

 of the delta which has not been filled in, by the river deposits, to 

 the same level as the country adjoining, — and this lower level line 

 of channel must be seized on by the rivers, the moment they are 

 diverted from their present course. Indeed this diversion has 

 commenced and the rapid enlargement of the channel of the Gorai 

 is only the first indication of the vast changes which will result. 



I will also notice that these changes cannot but be beneficial to 

 the new port of Morellgunj : and would suggest that they should 

 be watched with reference to their general cause, and to the wider 

 results, rather than with a view to the preservation of any special 

 limited locality. The time will undoubtedly come, when the larger 



