232 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Oct. 



likely to occur in the navigable channels. Trees falling into the 

 river with portions of the bank form snags, dangerous obstacles 

 to navigation. It may safely be asserted that every year all trees 

 on the concave bank of the river should be cleared to within a 

 distance of 500 feet, where the bank contains no kunkur, and is 

 non-permanent ; and to within a distance of 10 feet, where the 

 bank contains kunkur and is permanent. On the other hand, 

 it is a useless destruction of property to cut down trees on the 

 convex bank, or on either bank in a straight course of the river. 

 In those parts of the Ganges where the permanent banks are far 

 apart, the river runs in reaches from the northern to the southern 

 permanent bank, then curving round again to the northern permanent 

 bank, and so on. In those parts where the permanent banks are near 

 each other, the course of the river is tolerably straight, and changes 

 little from year to year. 



Ghazeepore, August 24^/i, 1868. 



The President invited discussion on the paper just now read. 

 Mr. Medlicott said— 



" Being called upon to speak, I can only say that the paper we have 

 just heard read contains nothing whatever that is new, or that gives 

 greater precision to previous knowledge. Without having ever seen a 

 river, one can tell that the current must set to the concave bank, or 

 that a bank of recent silt will wear incomparably faster than one of 

 consolidated clay. The constant depredations and changes of the great 

 rivers are familiar to every resident of the plains of India. As to the 

 conditions of the river in that region, it has been repeatedly described 

 how the large rivers " up country" run in Khadars — wide valleys 

 limited by the high permanent land of the adjoining Duabs. The 

 locality noticed in this paper is near the lower limit of the region where 

 such conditions obtain— where the river from being erosive becomes 

 formative. Mr. Ferguson, in his invaluable paper on " The Recent 

 Changes in the Delta of the Granges," has pointed out that below Buxar, 

 the mean fall of the river becomes about six inches in the mile, which 

 is the approximate limit assigned by Mr. Ferguson for a depositing 

 river, and that above Buxar, the fall becomes thirteen inches in the 

 mile. 



