Ganges and Burrampooter Rivers « j i j 
Our floods are rills — — — 
Thus pouring on, it proudly feeks the deep, ' 
Whofe vanquiflfd tide, recoiling from the fhock. 
Yields to this liquid weight — ~~ 
Thomson's Seafons, 
1 have already endeavoured to account for the Angular breadth 
of the Megna, by fuppofing that the Ganges once joined it 
where the Iflam u tty now does ; and that their joint waters 
fcooped out its prefent bed* The prefent junction of thefe two 
mighty rivers below Luckipour, produces a body of running 
frefh water, hardly to be equalled in the old hemifphere, and, 
perhaps, not exceeded in the new. It now forms a gulf inter- 
fperfed with iflands, fome of which rival, in fize and fertility, 
our Me of Wight. The water at ordinary times is hardly 
brackifh at the extremities of thefe iflands ; and, in the rainy 
feafon, the fea (or at leaf! the furface of it) is perfeftly freili to 
•the diftance of many leagues out. 
The Bore (which is known to be a fudden and abrupt influx 
of the tide into a river or narrow ftrait) prevails in the principal 
branches of the Ganges, and in the Megna; but the Hoogly 
River, and the paffages between the iflands and fands fituated in 
the gulf, formed by the confluence of the Ganges and Megna* 
are more fubjedt to it than the other rivers. This may be 
owing partly, to their having greater embouchures in proportion 
to their channels, than the others have, by which means a 
larger proportion of tide is forced through a paffage compara- 
tively fmaller ; and partly, to there being no capital openings near 
them, to draw off any confiderable portion of the accumulating 
tide. In the Hoogly or Calcutta River, the Bore commences at 
Hoogly Point (the place where the river firft contracts itfelf) 
Vol. LXXlo and 
