advantage of any means of irrigation that may be placed within its reach; that the introduction into this tract of a stream of water from the Sutlej is physically practicable; and that the probable benefit is so great as to warrant Government in undertaking the work, when means are available.

The tract of country whose improvement is contemplated by the Sutlej canal consists of part of the district of Hissar, and nearly the whole of Bhuttiana, called commonly the "Hard Desert." It is a bleak, wretched, and (without water) most sterile land. The wells are so deep that artificial irrigation is impossible the water is so brackish and impure that none, save natives of the tract, can drink it with impunity; rains are scanty, and precarious vegetation is represented by a few stunted thorn-bushes, or a temporary crop of grass over the great parched plains. Under circumstances so ungenial, the population is necessarily scanty and lawless, deriving their subsistence chiefly from herds of cattle, and addicted to the marauding habits common to pastoral tribes.

The question here is, therefore, not to improve agriculture, but to create it; not to provide, as in the country between the rivers Ganges and Jumna, for the casual occurrence of an unfavourable season, but to supply by the resources of science a substitute for that deficiency of rain, which is the rule and not the exception; and finally, to enable an extensive and capable province to become, by its increased resources and the progressive improvement of its inhabitants, a source of strength and revenue to the state, instead of being, as now, a burthen and weakness.

The river Sutlej, after flowing for between three hundred and four hundred miles within the Himmalyan range, breaks through the low hills on the southern face of these mountains at the town of Roopur. For twelve or fourteen miles above this point the stream flows through a valley, varying from one to four miles in width, bounded by low ranges of hills, consisting generally of unconsolidated strata of clay and sand, intermixed with a species of nodular limestone or marl, known in India under the name of "Kunkur," and employed largely for various purposes in the department of public works. The discharge of the river is estimated at five thousand four hundred cubic feet per

second; the fall is about four feet per mile; and the bed is generally sandy, with occasional layers of shingle.

On judicious and satisfactory grounds the head of the proposed canal is fixed at a place called Búnga, thirteen miles above Roopur.

At this point traces of an ancient canal, said to have been excavated by Mirza Kúndí, the governor of Sirhind under Mahommed Shah (probably IV.), were found, and, with occasional interruptions, were observed as far to the southward as Sirhind.

To restore this old line, connecting it with the Sirhind river, whereby the stream would be carried in one main channel to Sungrúr, a total distance from the head of nearly ninety miles, appeared to Major Baker to be the most economical plan of delivering the water at a point from which it might be favourably distributed, by two branch canals, to northern Hissar, and the Bhuttí states.* The Hissar branch would be forty miles, the Bhuttiana branch a hundred miles in length.

The chief, indeed the only difficulties occur in the first forty miles from the head. These are three in number. The first is the want of permanence in the bed of the Sutlej, giving cause to anticipate some difficulty in maintaining the canal supply. This it is proposed to remedy by building a masonry dam across the bed of the stream, whereby considerable security against alteration would be obtained. The second is the deficiency of fall in the country from Búnga to Sirhind. This fall is only forty feet in forty-one miles; and, as the depth of digging at the canal head is six feet, the effective fall available for the canal channel is only thirty-four feet in forty-one miles, or 9.9 inches (say ten inches) per mile. This is a small slope certainly for an Indian canal; but it might be increased to twelve inches, by adapting planks or gates to the piers of the masonry dam, so

That the plan proposed by Major Baker would be the cheapest available may be true, but that it would be the best is, I think, open to question. Nothing is more certain than that the occupation of old lines, and the employment of existing river-beds, have proved fruitful sources of evil on canals now in operation, and I believe that it would be true economy to avoid them. The levels are almost universally low, and the channels tortuous-both objections of serious importance in canals of irrigation; and I therefore venture to hope that the Sutlej canal, if ever undertaken, will be constructed independently of former lines, natural or artificial, even although this should entail some additional expense.

as to obtain during the season of irrigation five or six feet of additional head water. With even the lower regimen of slope, however, I believe the canal would be found efficient; and the difficulty is, in fact, of no great importance. The third is the very deep excavation, ranging in the first fifteen miles south of the Sissúwala torrent from thirty-two to twenty feet. It is considered probable that farther examination might lead to a better line being found south of Roopur-a very likely result; but even if unattained, the deep digging is not without its advantages, inasmuch as it admits of the hill drainage being all passed over the canal instead of through it, as is the case on the Jumna canals, where it is the source of so much evil and expense. On the whole, therefore, the difficulties of the project are not of serious consequence at their worst; and I doubt not but that the resources of the officers who may be employed on the works will prove adequate to vanquish them all.

The estimated expense of the Sutlej canal, with works on such a scale as to make it competent to a discharge of 2500 cubic feet per second, is £250,000. This estimate is a liberal and sufficient one, and would probably be found to exceed considerably the actual cost.

The probable returns, so far as the Government is concerned, will consist of water-rent, and such increase of land-rent as irrigated tracts under similar circumstances have been found to yield. As regards the first item, it is calculated that 2000 cubic feet of water will reach the irrigating districts; and, assuming the low average rate of the Western Jumna canals as the standard, this discharge is competent to the irrigation of 312,000 acres. The average water-rent, west of the Jumna, is exactly two shillings per acre; consequently the return to Government from this source would amount to £31,200 per annum.

To form an approximate estimate of the increase of landrevenue which Government may anticipate, I avail myself of the statistical table of the Western Jumna canals formerly given, assuming that the influence of these canals on the district of Hissar may be taken as a guide in forming an opinion as to the influence of the Sutlej canal on the same district, and the adjoining one of Bhuttiana.

From the table we accordingly find that, while the rate of land-revenue per square mile of unirrigated localities in the district of Hissar is £15, that for irrigated tracts is £48, giving a difference in favour of the latter of £33 per square mile. Again, we find that the area on which the increased land-rent is calculated bears to the area actually watered the proportion of 2 to 1. Hence, as the Sutlej canal actually waters 312,000 acres, the increased land-revenue must be calculated on twice this area, or 624,000 acres, being 737 square miles. The increase of land-revenue may therefore at once be shown as below-737 square miles of irrigated land, at £33 per square mile, equals £24,321.

The total direct pecuniary return to Government from both the preceding sources would accordingly be £55,521 per annum on an invested capital of £250,000, or nearly 22 per cent.

These views are limited, however, to the benefits Government will derive from the project. We must now consider also the gain to the community, by bringing so large a surface of country, now a desert, under cultivation to the same extent as we find it on the Western Jumna canals. The benefit to the community will be represented by the gross value of the agricultural produce which the Sutlej canal will admit of being obtained from land which now yields none. Taking the results on the Western Jumna canals again as guides, I estimate the value of the produce alluded to as below:

Time will, of course, be required to create this property of the value of nearly one and a half millions sterling per annum; but it is only necessary to compare the state of the Hissar district, before the Western Jumna canals were restored, with its condition in its irrigating villages for the last ten years, to be satisfied that, with the supply of water-the first necessity of

agriculture in North-Western India-there will come a population able and willing to use it.

The benefits of the proposed canal now mentioned are such as admit of being approximately estimated in money; but there are others which are measurable by no such standard. Among these are the moral benefits to be derived from introducing agricultural habits among a lawless and semi-barbarous people, converting them from wandering shepherds into settled, contented, and prosperous cultivators; and the physical benefits to be anticipated from restoring fertility to a large tract of country, the increased moisture of which may probably so react as to secure more constant and more abundant supplies of rain over the adjoining districts, and thus improve the condition of those who cannot directly benefit by the canal. The numerous traces of former rivers unconnected with any mountain ranges, and the ruins of towns along their banks, show that these desert regions once enjoyed a far more generous supply of rain than they now do. We hope again to re-establish this happier state of things, and thus to check the deluge of sand which threatens to submerge so large a portion of their surface.

A canal having its head of supply to the westward of Lúdiana, near a place called New Tiharah, has also been projected, with the view of bringing into use the water of the Sutlej during the rains. This work has, however, on more careful examination of the country, proved to be, although practicable, so little likely to be profitable in comparison with its cost, that it has for the present been abandoned; and I need therefore only mention it here.

Crossing the Jumna, to the eastward, the only projected works are measures to take advantage of the streams which, rising in or near the Siwalic range, traverse the districts of Saharunpúr and Muzuffernuggur. It is very desirable to subject these streams to professional control, so that their waters may be rendered available for irrigation, without entailing the evils we have seen to prevail on the unregulated rivers west of the Jumna.

The extension of irrigation in the eastern portion of the valley of Deyrah, and the drainage of those great swamps which at present render this tract so fatal to human life, are also projected, but have not yet been undertaken. There is here a