OBSERVATIONS ON IRRIGATION WORKS IN INDIA. 153 



1901-2, tlie value of the crops in India as a whole, raised 

 by the aid of irrigation from the works, for which capital 

 accounts are kept, is estimated at nearly 42 crores of 

 rupees (28 millions of pounds), or about 95 per cent, of the 

 capital outlay expended on them.* There is, in fact, a 

 return from canals, quite independent of the actual money 

 receipts, in the food raised by their help, at a time when it is 

 most required. That eminent statesman. Lord Curzon, who as 

 Viceroy now so worthily controls the Government of India, has 

 fully recognized this fact, and irrigation works are being 

 pushed on as fast as plans can be prepared, without too much 

 re":ard to their character as remunerative works. 



The Slate irrigation canals usually directly depend for their 

 supply of water on rivers. There are a few small canals, fed 

 from reservoirs and tanks, but the irrigation canals in India are in 

 the main supplied directly by rivers, some of which are snow fed 

 and give a sufticient supply of water all the year round, whilst 

 others can be depended on for a full supply only during the 

 rainy season, that is from July to October. The rivers of India 

 have many peculiarities, perhaps the most striking being, that 

 it is difticult, during flood time, to know where they will be the 

 day after to-morrow. The Ganges has been known to change 

 its course, by as much as 2 or 3 miles, in the course of one 

 rainy season. The Indian rivers area study in themselves. An 

 Eugineer, who built one of the largest railway bridges in India, 

 at the ceremony when the bridge was opened, remarked that he 

 had watched that particular river as a cat might watch a mouse, 

 for three years, and was then as far from knowing what change 

 might occur in its course, during a single rainy season, as he 

 was when he first saw it. The non-snow fed rivers, which are 

 those with which I am best acquainted, are frequently dry, 

 almost always fordable in the dry weather, whilst in the rains, 

 they may be anything from 1 to 3 miles wide, with a raging 

 current, between 8 and 20 feet deep, passing down them. 

 A journey in the rains from Calcutta to (Juttack used, before 

 the days of railways or the rise of the port of Chandbally, 

 to be attended with many possible troubles, not the least of 

 which was the chance of being detained, with no shelter 

 but a palanquin, on the banks of a river for 48 hours. One 

 particular river, with which I am acquainted, the Byturnee, 

 which in the summer may be crossed on stepping stones, has 



* Government of India Resolution^ No. 1213 C. W. — 1. of lOtli Septem- 

 ber, 1903. 



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