COPY of CORRESPONDENCE relative to the PIER and HARBOUR of SEDASHEGAR, and ROADS leading thereto. (Lord Stanley.) Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, [Price 3s. 4d. ] 81. Under 16 oz. RETURN to an Address of the Honourable The House of Commons, A "COPY of all CORRESPONDENCE not hitherto published, relative to the HARBOUR OF SEDASHEGUR, and ROADS leading thereto." India Office, } W. T. THORNTON, Secretary, (Lord Stanley.) Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, COPY of CORRESPONDENCE not hitherto published, relative to the HARBOUR of SEDASHEGUR, and ROADS leading thereto. PUBLIC WORKS DESPATCH from the Government of Bombay to the Secretary of State, No. 6, dated 2 February 1863. Para. 1. MR. LATHAM, a civil engineer, who was recently employed in this country on behalf of some promoters of a railway from Beitcul to Bellary having, in pages 24 and 25 of a report published by him, of which we believe you have been supplied with a copy, made certain remarks on the Arbyle Ghaut Road and the bridges on the Ankola and Ballakery Creeks in North Canara; we deemed it proper to call the attention of the superintending engineer, Southern Circle, to those remarks. 2. We now beg, with reference to our Despatch, No. 2, dated the 13th January 1863, to forward copy of a communication from the superintending engineer, dated the 16th December 1862, whose explanations appear to us to be quite satisfactory. Office of Superintending Engineer, S. C., Sir, I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 1399, of the 27th ultimo, and accompaniment. 2. The remarks at pages 24 and 25 of Mr. Latham's pamphlet on the Arbyle Ghaut Road are, like many other of his observations in the same paper, unfounded, and written without personal knowledge of, or reliable information regarding, the subjects he treats of. 3. The Arbyle Road to Ankola is not yet complete, or in good order; on it water is not more available than on the Kyga, and grass is less abundant; and it is not the principal cotton road. 4. The new road connecting the Arbyle Road and Beitcul is not bent back to some considerable distance to obtain a ford; its present position is not inconvenient, and was selected from the following reasons: It saves distance. It passes over a favourable country for road-making. It avoids several formidable tidal creeks which Mr. Latham would apparently cross at their junction with the sea; and It avoids the shifting drift sand of the coast, over which it would be very nearly impossible to make a cart road at all, though Mr. Latham, travelling in a munchal in the monsoon when the sand was moist and hard, may not have observed this defect in what is called the old coast road. 5. On the new line there is but one ford, with a hard bottom, which has 9" of fresh water in it at low water, 3 feet of brackish water at high tide (it was measured thus on the 7th instant, one day after the full moon), and which is always easily passable by laden carts at half tide. 6. Over this river, every effort, however, will be made to throw a bridge before the monsoon, and in the dry weather it offers no impediment whatever to traffic. |