49

ARCHAOLOGY.

the drier portions of the Island, such as the North-Central
Province where the old capital Anuradhapura lies. Wide
districts rendered fertile by the interception of a river and
the formation of suitable canals were appropriated to the
maintenance of the local priesthood and thousands of broad
acres dedicated to the repair of a single dagoba.
Among the more notable of these ancient engineering
feats are the impounding of the waters of a river at Kalawewa,
 which formed a reservoir 40 miles in circumference,

STATUE OF KING PARAKKRAMA BAHU AT POLONNARUWA

with an artificial embankment 12 miles long, and the
formation of a canal 60 miles in length to convey the
Fertilizing stream to Anuradhapura. This tank was undertaken
 in the year 460 A.D. This work, which has recently
been restored by the British Government. is still fulfilling
its object of irrigating rice land.
There are fifty or sixty of these large irrigation works in
Ceylon, while the number of lesser village tanks is
reckoned by the thousand.