Ganges and Rurrampooter- Rivers. p 3 
and tranfported with equal facility : and here alfo is found an 
inexhauftible ftore of timber for boat-building. The breadth 
of the lower part of this Delta is upwards of 180 miles; to 
which, if we add that of the two branches of the river that 
bound it, we fhall have about 200 miles for the diftance to 
which the Ganges expands its branches at its junction with the 
fea. 
It has been obferved before, that the courfe of this river, from 
Hurdwar to the fea, is through an uniform plain, or, at leaft, 
what appears fuch to the eye : for, the declivity is much too 
fmall to be perceptible. A feflion of the ground, parallel to 
one of its branches, in length 60 miles, was taken by order of 
Mr. Hastings ; and it was found to have about nine inches de- 
fcent in each mile, reckoning in a ftraight line, and allowance 
being made for the curvature of the earth. Rut the windings 
of the river were fo great, as to reduce the declivity on which 
the water ran, to lefs than four inches per mile : and by a com- 
parifon of the velocity of the ft ream at the place of experiment 
with that in other places, I have no reafon to fuppofe, that its 
general defcent exceeds it *. 
The medium rate of motion of the Ganges is lefs than three 
miles an hour in the dry months. In the wet feafon, and 
during the draining off of the waters from the inundated lands, 
the current runs from five to fix miles an hour ; but there are 
inftances of its running feven, and even eight miles, in parti- 
cular fituations, and under certain circumftances. I have an 
* M. de condamine found the defcent of the river Amazons, in a ftraight 
courfe of about i860 miles, to be about 1020 Englifh feet, or 6-1 inches in a mile. 
If we allow for the windings, it comes out nearly the fame as the Ganges (which 
winds about i|- mile in three, taking its whole courfe through the plains), namely, 
about 4 inches in a mile. 
experiment 
