4^ 



The Neilgherry Mountains. [No. 34, 



out the year, including the whole of the dry monsoon, a constant and 

 abundant supply of water is yielded from these natural reservoirs, 

 which seem provided to obviate what, but for their occurrence, might, 

 after unusually dry seasons, be the evil of drought in the district. 



Owing to this cause there is scarcely a stream or rivulet on the 

 Neilgherries, which ever completely dries up at any period of the year, 

 even in the most unfavorable weather, and hence a supply of water 

 is constantly descending, to swell and feed the streams by which the 

 Eurrounding low country is irrigated. 

 ^^^^ The only sheet of water svhich merits the ap- 



pellation of a lake is one situated at Ootacamund 

 within the cantonment, formed by throwing an embankment across the 

 narrow outlet of a valley through which a considerable stream, fed by 

 numerous swamps in the neighbourhood, used to flow, and thus arrest- 

 ing its waters, and accumulating them so as to form a lake or tank. 

 The object with which this sheet of water was produced was purely 

 ornamental, a drive having been made round it for recreation and ex- 

 ercise, resorted to by the residents of Ootacamund. The surplus 

 water is drawn off by means of a sluice at the bottom of the embank- 

 ment, and continues its course to the north as before. 



Means of irrigation. Gardens and cultivated grounds requiring a 

 regular supply of water (as poppy fields) are 

 irrigated, where circumstances allow of it, by means of channels led off 

 from the valley streams ; but the dry grain cultivation in the different 

 parts of the Hills is sufficiently assisted by the rains and by the mois- 

 ture which the soil, from its composition and depth, has a great ten- 

 dency to retain. 



As the value of land increases on these Hills, and their capabili"" 

 ties become more thoroughly appreciated — as begins to be already ap- 

 parent from the increase of permanent settlers on them, both European 

 and native — it will I think be found highly necessary to establish 

 some stringent regulations for the control and appropriation of the 

 water of the Hill streams. In the valuable despatch of the Honorable 

 Court of Directors to the Supreme Government upon the subject of 

 the Dheyra Doon and Gorruckpore survey, dated 23d February, 



1842, by the resolutions laid down in which it would appear by their 

 despatch to the Government of Fort St. George, para. 12, No. 13 of 



1843, Revenue Department, the Honorable Court desire that all mat- 

 ters relating to the Neilgherry district should be adjudicated, it is 



