Ganges and Burrampooter Rivers. pp 
obliquely towards the oppofite fide of the canal, depofitlng in 
its way the matter excavated from the bay, and which begins 
to form a (hallow or bank contiguous to the border of the canal. 
Here then is the origin of fuch windings as owe their exigence 
to the nature of the foil. The bay, fo corroded, in time be- 
comes large enough to give a new dirediion to the body of the 
canal : and the matter excavated from the bay is fo difpofed as 
to affift in throwing the current againft the oppofite bank, 
where a procefs, fimilar to that 1 have been defcribing, will be 
begun. 
The adlion of the current on the bank will alfo have the 
effedt of deepening the border of the channel near it ; and this 
again increafes the velocity of the current in that part. Thus 
would the canal gradually take a new form, till it became what 
the river now is. Even when the windings have leffened the 
defcent one half, we ftill find the current too powerful for the 
banks to withftand it. 
There are not wranting inftances of a total change of courfe 
in fome of the Bengal rivers*. The Cofa River (equal to the 
Rhine) once ran by Purneah, and joined the Ganges oppofite 
Rajemal. Its junction is now 45 miles higher up. Gour, the 
ancient capital of Bengal, flood on thebanks of the Ganges. 
Appearances favour very ftrongly the opinion, that the 
Ganges had its former bed in the tradt now occupied by the 
lakes and moraffes between Nattore and Jaffiergunge, ftriking 
out of its prefen t courfe at Bauleah, and ; palling by Pootyah. 
With an equal degree of probability (favoured by tradition) we 
may trace its fuppofed courfe by Dacca, to a jundfcion. with the* 
Burrampooter or Megna near Fringybazar ; where the accumu- 
* The Mootyjyl lake is one of the windings of a former channel of the Cof- 
fimbuzar River. 
O 2 lation 
