9 6 Mr. rennell’s Account of the 
them ; but the leaft inflection of courfe has the effeCt of throw- 
ing the current againft the bank ; and if this happens in a part 
where the foil is compofed of loofe fand, it produces in time a 
ferpentine winding. 
It is evident, that the repeated additions made to the {helving 
bank before mentioned, become in time an encroachment on 
the channel of the river ; and this is again counter-balanced by 
the depredations made on the oppofite fteep bank, the frag- 
ments of which, either bring about a repetition of the circum- 
ftances above recited, or form a bank or {hallow in the midft of 
the channel. Thus a fteep and a {helving bank are alternately 
formed in the crooked parts of the river (the fteep one being 
the indint ed flde, and the {helving one the projecting J ; and 
thus, a continual fluctuation of courfe is induced in all the 
winding parts of the river ; each meander having a perpetual 
tendency to deviate more and more from the line of the general 
courfe of the river, by eating deeper into the bays, and at the 
fame time adding to the points, till either the oppofite bays 
meet, or the ftream breaks through the narrow ifthmus, and 
reftores a temporary ftraightnefs to the channel. 
Several of the windings of the Ganges and its branches are 
faft approaching to this ftate ; and in others, it actually exifts at 
prefent. The experience of thefe changes fliould operate againft 
attempting canals of any length, in the higher parts of the 
country j and I much doubt, if any in the lower parts would 
long continue navigable. During eleven years of my refidence 
in Bengal, the outlet or head of the Jellinghy River was gra- 
dually removed three quarters of a mile farther down : and by 
two furveys of a part of the adjacent bank of the Ganges, 
taken about the diftance of nine years from each other, it ap- 
peared that the breadth of an Englifh mile and a half had been 
taken 
