great and most interesting field for improvement, and, until the projected drainage arrangements are carried into effect, this portion of the Dhún must continue, as now, to be worse than useless to the State and community. The facilities for drainage in the vicinity of the great swamps are remarkable: there are numerous channels of escape connected with the Ganges, the rapid slopes of the beds of which would make them most efficient; and nothing more is required than to select the most convenient of these, and to connect them with the swamps by drainage cuts of adequate dimensions, and properly adjusted levels. The work will not, it is true, advance very rapidly, as men can exist in these jungles only for three or four months of the year; but as each swamp is drained, the salubrity of the adjoining country may be expected to improve, and with each year of progress a larger period of time for active operations would be made available. It is now some years since the Court of Directors expressed their wish that the preceding operations should be set in progress; but the want of qualified men to superintend them has apparently prevented their being undertaken.

It remains now to notice the last class of the canals of the British Government-those, namely, which at this time are in course of execution.

The first works that claim attention are those for the drainage of the Nujufghur Jhíl, or lake, and the irrigation of the lands now covered by this great sheet of water.

The Nujufghur Lake extends from near the city of Delhi to some distance beyond Dholkote, and may be described as consisting of a main trunk of extremely irregular outline, and having a general south-westerly direction, about twenty-four miles in length, and from a quarter of a mile to three miles in breadth and of two branches thrown off from the western border, the most northerly of which is about seven and a half, the other about fourteen miles in length, each being about half a mile in width.

The southern extremity of the main trunk expands into a large basin about three miles in diameter, into which the rivers supplying the lake discharge themselves. These rivers are two in number, the Badshapúr Torrent, which receives the drainage

of the hilly country south-east of the basin, and the Sahibí Torrent, which drains from the westward.

Professional attention appears to have been first turned to the improvement of the Nujufghur Lake about 1838, when Major H. M. Durand of the Engineers was appointed to survey the ground, and to report upon the subject.

The project submitted in May 1838 by this able officer was simple in design and efficient in detail. It contemplated the regulation of the floods of the Badshahpúr Torrent by means of a properly situated dam; the entire diversion of the waters of the Sahibí from the basin, except in years of extraordinary floods, and the excavation through the high land at the northeastern or Delhi extremity of the lake of an escape cut to the river Jumna, of such dimensions, and such level at the head, as would admit of its draining the whole surface of the lake. This cut was of peculiar form, having a wide and shallow section in its upper portion to admit of the rain-floods passing off easily, and a narrow and deep one below, to secure the ultimate drainage of the most depressed portions of the bed. The project contemplated also the construction of a regulating bridge across this drainage-cut at a favourable point, by adjusting the gates or sluices of which, such quantity of water as was necessary for cultivation might be retained in the lake, and gradually discharged as the cultivators were prepared to take possession of the land laid dry.

This system was in exact accordance with the practice of the people in the villages bordering on the lake from time immemorial. Long experience had taught them the usual levels of the waters; on the ground just beyond the limit of continued submersion they planted sugar-cane, which ordinarily was luxuriant. As the waters of the lake dried up at the termination of the rains, the submerged ground was ploughed, and wheat was sown, and in this manner the cultivation followed the retiring waters, until the whole land usually laid dry was covered with crops.

In case of a failure of the rains, and to maintain the supply in the basin to the full extent required, Major Durand proposed to carry a cut from the Delhi branch of the Western Jumna Canal, and to depend upon it in cases of emergency.

Had this project been carried out, as originally designed, its

success would have been certain; but unfortunately, when it was submitted to the Military Board, that body so altered it that it proved a total failure; and for four or five years past the last state of the unlucky cultivators has been worse than the first, as, while their land-rent had been enhanced to the extent of upwards of £1000, their crops perished from want of water at one time, and from too much at another.

The expense incurred in the execution of such portions of Major Durand's project as were authorised appears to have been about £5800; and as Government had made these works the grounds for increasing the land-revenue, common justice required that efforts to render them efficient should be continued.

A new project was accordingly prepared in 1847 by Mr Battie, the executive officer of the works, which, after being approved of by Major Baker and Colonel Cautley, was immediately commenced, and is now most probably finished.

According to this project, an embanked channel, forty feet in width, will be carried along the lowest levels of the lake from the Delhi extremity to the gorge of the Dholkote basin. On reaching this point, the embankments turn to the right and left to meet the high land bordering the basin, which is thus entirely isolated irom the main trunk of the lake; and the waters entering it have no other means of escape than through the embanked channel. From the main channel two subordinate lines are carried along the lowest levels of the Bahadúrghur and Bussunnia branches of the lake; and means are adopted for collecting the country drainage-water into these different channels by means of duly-adjusted catch-drains. At the Delhi or northern end of the main channel the regulating bridge is placed, by which the water can be maintained at any desired height, the surplus being passed off by an escape cut to the river Jumna.

This project, it will be observed, differs from Major Durand's, in contemplating the entire recovery of the land forming the bed of the lake and its branches, with the exception of the space occupied by the embanked channel; and in substituting, for the submersion of the land for a certain time, irrigation in the ordinary manner, from a canal supplied by a large reservoir. The contents of the Dholkote basin are calculated to be

sufficient for the irrigation of 24,000 acres, and the quantity of land to be permanently redeemed is estimated at 12,800; so that there will be but little risk of want of water except in extraordinary seasons, for which provision may be made by a cut from the Western Jumna Canal.

There is every prospect of Mr Battie's design being a successful one; and should it be so, it will secure to Government an annual revenue of about £1700. The estimated cost of the new works being £6000, and the total expenditure from first to last £11,800-supposing the cost of repairs and establishment to amount to £600 per annum-the Nujufghur Lake works will return to Government about 9 per cent on the capital invested in them.

There are several other large sheets of water in the Delhi territory which, to a certain extent, have been made available for cultivation, as the Chundaure, Kotillah, &c.; but these need not now detain us, as they are of no special importance. It is, however, most interesting to trace the extraordinary extent to which irrigation has in former times been carried on in this part of the country. Incredible numbers of ancient dams exist, and, wherever there was a possibility of collecting even the smallest body of water, there an embankment seems to have been formed, and a plot of ground of proportionate extent brought into cultivation. The immediate vicinity of the imperial city, with its court and army, probably gave an excessive stimulus to local agriculture, and led to these numerous works being constructed.

Continuing now our progress to the eastward, the next work we find in course of execution is the Kutta Puthur canal, intended for the irrigation of the western portion of the valley of Deyrah.*

This work was originally designed by Colonel Cautley in 1841, and was then laid aside on account of the financial pressure of the times. In 1847 the practicability of the work came again under discussion, and the writer was directed to superintend a new survey and design of the proposed work. The services of second lieutentant Hutchinson of the Engineers were made available for the field work, and the new design, differing from * This work is also, I presume, completed by this time.

that of Colonel Cautley only in details, is thus summarily described in my report upon it :

"The Kutta Puthur canal, leaving the Jumna at a point on the left bank of that river, immediately under the village whence the canal derives its name, is 10 miles and 3712 feet in length. Its fixed supply of water is 80 cubic feet per second, and its fall, from the head to the bed of the Sitwala river, in which it terminates, is 52.59 feet, whereof 19.59 feet are absorbed by the initial digging and the slope of the channel, and 33 feet disposed of by masonry falls of 10, 5, 12, and 6 feet in depth respectively. In its course it traverses nineteen mountain streams, being drainage lines from the southern slope of the Himmalayas. These streams are annuals, being full only during the rainy season, and the canal crosses them by seven dams, with water-ways varying, as detailed in Lieutenant Hutchinson's report, from 10 to 100 feet, and 12 aqueducts, varying similarly from 10 to 90 feet. Its masonry channel, 10 feet in width and 3 feet in depth, extends for 19,713 feet (or nearly four miles) from the head, the remainder of the course being in earthen embankments, or excavations, as necessary. Three bridges for cross communication, two mill-houses for double sets of stones each, one first-class and three second-class station-houses, are provided for; and it is supposed that the whole series of works will be finished, and the canal opened, at the end of the year 1849. The estimated expense is about £8890.” *

This canal has the same general characteristics as the other Dhún canals formerly described. It is carried along the faces of the cliffs rising over the Jumna in a masonry channel until it debouches on the upland of the western Dhún, at a place called Ambarí, from whence it is carried to the eastward in a direction generally parallel to the main range of the Himmalayas, and as near to its base as the levels permit, so as to bring the largest possible extent of land to the southward under irrigation. About 17,000 acres of the richest soil will ultimately be brought under the influence of the Kutta Puthur canal. This beautiful

tract of country is now almost a waste-a few miserable-looking

I suspect that this estimate has been materially exceeded in the execution of the work, from the difficulties of the line and other causes.