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INDIA

storage works, built in the middle ages during the days
of Arab occupation, which are marvels of constructive skill ;
and to this day every drop of water in the Kabul River and
in the Hari Rud (the river of Herat) is at certain seasons
of the year carried off to the villages and fields.
But no such gigantic systems as the English have
initiated were ever known in India before our advent.
The entire volume of the Ganges at Hardwar (where it
issues from the hills) is, during the season of low flood,
diverted into a canal, and carried by a series of engineering
 works, sometimes above, sometimes below, the lines
of drainage crossing it from the lower Himalaya to the
level flats of the United Provinces. Through its agency
the Doab, or plain, intervening between the Ganges and
the Jumna is watered. Twenty miles below Hardwar,
where the Ganges has again developed into a river, it
is again diverted into a second great canal. Either of
these two canals discharge a volume of water which is
double that of the Thames at Teddington. Three smaller
canals tap the Jumna, and distribute its waters over a vast
area. The Son River also provides an irrigation system,
which is further developed in Bengal and Orissa in districts
where the network of natural waterways does not extend.
In the Punjab the development of canals for the
watering of the broad plains intervening between its
great rivers is still in progress, and every river in the
province is laid under contribution. So large is the
expected extent of fresh cultivation that new ¢ Districts,”
demanding an increase of administrative staff, are already
contemplated. In Madras the Godavari and Kistna irrigation
 systems have been in force for many years, and
the profit to Government realised therefrom, independent
of the development of enormous areas of delta country
and the salvation of millions from periodic scarcity, has
been immense. Here the head of water required is obtained
 by building a weir, or anicut, across the river.
In Sind, again, the Indus floods are utilised for irrigation,
and the dry, arid plains of Sind are now fairly prosperous,
and support 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 of people.