260 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
there is no reason for thinking that assessment by Measurement 
had ever been introduced. It is reasonable to infer from these 
facts that the records of area are confined to the regions which 
had at one time or other been so assessed; and this inference is 
supported by an examination of the cases in which areas are not 
recorded for a portion of a province. The following districts in 
the ten measured provinces have no record of areas: Kumain in 
Delhi, Bhathghora in Allahabad, Garha and Marosor in Malwa, 
Jodhpur, Sirohi, and Bikanir in Ajmer, Monghyr in Bihar, and 
Sorath in Gujarat. In all these districts we either know or have 
good reason to believe that either the Mogul administration did 
not function effectively, or that it functioned through the local 
Chiefs. 
So far then as the provinces and districts are concerned, we 
may infer a connection between the record of areas, and the 
practice, at some period. of assessment by Measurement; in the 
cases of Bihar and Gujarat, we have to assume that Measurement 
had been introduced for a time, not in the 19th year, but probably 
at some later period. 
Area-figures are wanting for a number of subdivisions in 
districts which as a whole had been measured. It is possible to 
suppose that in these cases, or in some of them, the figures had 
been lost ; but it seems to me more probable that, in some of them 
at least, the subdivisions had in fact escaped Measurement, and 
that local jurisdiction in them remained in the hands of Chiefs. 
Turning now to the figures given in dams as Aggregate, the 
question arises whether these represent the Demand made on 
the peasants in some particular year or series of years, or the 
Valuation used in the Ministry for administrative purposes. 
The former view has been taken by, I think, all previous writers 
on the subject, including myself; and it was reasonable, or at 
least tenable, on one or other of two hypotheses, firstly, the 
hypothesis of an assessment fixed in money, secondly, the 
hypothesis of a continuance of direct administration. If, 
however, both of these have to be rejected, we are almost driven 
to the conclusion that the figures must represent Valuation, not 
Demand. 
The first hypothesis was accepted by various writers in the 
nineteenth century, who considered that the operations of the 
24th year consisted in fixing a cash-Demand to be paid year by 
year by each village, in the same way as the Demand has usually 
heen fixed during the British period. The idea comes naturally