ASSAM, BURMA, AND CEYLON 171

valley, amounts to 116,500 cubic feet per second. After
receiving the Subansiri from Tibet the total flood discharge
must be over 500,000 cubic feet.
“The Brahmaputra rolls down the Assam valley in a
vast sheet of water, broken by numerous islands, and
exhibiting the operations of alluvion and deluvion on
a gigantic scale.” The vast quantity of silt brought from
the Himalayas is deposited in banks at the smallest
obstruction, and islands form and re-form in constant succession.
 Broad channels break away, and rejoin the main
river after wide divergences which are subjected to no
control. The swamps which closely adjoin the elevated
alluvial foundation of the
river bed are flooded in
the rainy season till the
lower reaches of the valley
 are one vast shining
sea, from which the hills
slope up on either side.
After 450 miles of open
course the river turns
the western flank of the
Khasia Hills. Here it
becomes the Jamuna for
180 miles of southerly
flow across the flat plains of Bengal till it joins the Ganges
at Goalanda. Then the deltas unite. After the Surma has
joined from Cachar the united stream of the three great river
systems takes the name of Meghna and rushes to the sea.
Gualpara and Dibrugarh are perhaps the best known stations
of the upper Assam valley, and on the Khasia Hills to the
south stands the well-known hill sanatarium of Shillong,
so lately, and so terribly, damaged by earthquake. The
traffic on the river in Assam is maintained by exports
of tea (to the value of 1} million sterling per annum),
timber, rubber, and cotton, with imports chiefly of rice
for the tea-estate labourers. The tea industry of Assam
now largely supersedes all other agricultural developments.
Burma, the land of picturesque rivers and forest-clad

13. 55.—The Bend of the Brahmaputra,