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C. W. ODLING, ESQ., M.INST.C.E._, C.S.I., ON 



Eesident Engineer in charge of the construction of the weir 

 across the Brahminee, a river 4,000 feet wide. This is not a 

 snow-fed river, and usually from December to June it is nearly 

 dry. In this year, however, a heavy flood occurred in January, 

 and as I had two railway lines laid across the river bed and m 

 use, its effects were disastrous. The lines were submerged and 

 the movable plant, including portions of railway waggons, 

 swept down the river, and gradually picked up miles away. A 

 flood in that month of the year was an unheard-of occurrence. 

 Fortunately for me the Inspector- General of Irrigation was 

 present, and I think that my predominant feeling was rather 

 more one of satisfaction, that he was there to witness the 

 incident, than distress at the occurrence, which was in itself 

 sufficiently annoying, as all work stopped in June, and a great 

 deal of leeway had to be made up. Cholera was anotlier peril 

 to which we were not infrequently subject. The work-people 

 took the matter in their own hands, and after a few cases 

 dispersed. I have myself known, on one canal under construc- 

 tion, the work-people to diminish in two days from upwards of 

 20,000 to one-tenth of that number. I may perhaps say that, 

 on such occasions, there is a good deal of amateur doctoring, 

 and that a pint of rum will, so far as my experience goes, cure 

 any case of cholera in an adult, provided, and the proviso is 

 important, that the person experimented on has never touched 

 alcohol before. Such persons, I may add, are in some parts of 

 India by no means rare. 



The water in the river having been raised to a sufficient 

 extent canals are dug, which extend many miles in length, and 

 compared with those common in England, are of great size. 

 The canal with which I was most concerned was 80 yards wide 

 at water line, and there are many much larger. The discharge, 

 3,000 cubic feet per second, was sufficient to cover 18,000 acres 

 of ground with water 4 inches in depth in 24 hours, and as 

 rice, the crop with wdiich we were mostly concerned, can live 

 without water for 12 to 14 days, the crops on 220,000 acres 

 could be saved independently of the rainfall. A canal on 

 the other side of the river was capable of irrigating something 

 more than half this area, so that crops on some 350,000 acres 

 were safe. Our chief difficulty, when the canal first commenced 

 to run, was with silt, wdiich was deposited in large quantities 

 in the first mile of the canal, reducing its depth by one-half, in 

 times of flood, when much silt was deposited. After a time, 

 the engineers in charge, managed to so arrange the supply, that 

 the water which entered contained less silt, and that such silt 



