The Ganges Canal, commenced in 1848, was opened on the 8th April 1854. It is wholly a British project. The water is brought from Ganes Ghat on the Ganges, 2} miles north of the town of Hurdwar, close to the foot of the Siwalik mountains. The main channel is 348 miles long, and the branches 306 and the distri butaries 3078, in aggregate length ; and 767,000 acres in 5061 villages are irrigated by them. The principal engineer was Sir Proby Cautley. Com mencing at Hurdwar, as the river Ganges issues from the mountains, it runs through the country on the right bank of the river. One of its many branches re-enters the Ganges at Cawnpur, and another joins the river Jumna. The canal is carried by a great viaduct, three miles long, over the river Salani. It is of earth, and is protected by a wall of masonry and a bridge of fifteen arches, each of fifty feet of span, through the volume of another river, and beneath the bed of a third, and was planned to re-enter the Ganges at Benares. The Solani aqueduct leaves a clear waterway of 700 feet, and cost 2300,000. The total cost of the canal was not less than two millions sterling (£2,036,000). It takes about 75 per cent. of the water of the Ganges, whose volume, however, is not diminished. It traverses the Doab, and by countless branches, dykes, and channels, irrigates almost every village throughout a tract of country upwards of 800 miles in length, and is supplied to every tiller on payment of a water tax. At Hurd. war, the pass through which it issues, at the lowest ebb discharges about 7000 cubic feet of water every second. Its current was too strong for navigation, and the expected advantages from it for irrigation were not attained. It is carried through Hurdwar, Alighur, Cawnpur, Hamirpur (530 miles), with branches to Futehghur, Buland shahr, and Koel. A ridge of land rises slightly above the level of the adjacent country, and runs along the centre of the Doab, sloping down on the one side to the Jumna, and on the other to the Ganges. The canal has been constructed on the top of this ridge to the vicinity of Alighur, whence it diverges into two channels, one to Cawnpur, and the other to Hamirpur and Etawa. On the completion of the canal, it was opened in April 1854, and the water admitted on an aqueduct across the Solani river at Roorkee. The engineer, Sir Proby Cautley, on leaving Calcutta, was honoured with a salute from the batteries of Fort William, and was favourably noticed in the Government Gazette.
The Agra Canal has been led off from the Jumna below Dehli, to irrigate the lands of Dchli, Agra, and Muttra. It irrigates 350,000 acres. The Futtehpur Sikri reservoir may also be men tioned.
The Rohilkhand Canals comprise the Nehtore, the Nugina, the Bygool, 180 miles, the Muradabad, the Paba, 13 miles long, and the Kailas canals ; and the Kitcha and Dhora watercourses, 32 miles. They irrigate the belt of country along the Terai, where much rice is grown.
There are five canals in the Dehra valley, be tween the Ganges and the Jumna, aggregating 67 miles in length, and irrigating 11,039 acres. There are ten miles of rajbuha.
The tanks in Mhairwam in 1871-72 had a total area of 8675, and irrigated 14,826 acres. They were largely constructed by Colonels Hall and Dixon.
The canals of the N. TV. Provinces have irrigated
on the average 1,065,450 acres.
A dam has been thrown across the Soar river, and two main channels lead off from it.
The Midnapur Canal was partly open in 1871-72. It is 52 miles long, to irrigate 200,000 acres.
Mention may be made of the Arrah Canal, 70 miles long, to irrigate 430,000 acres, and of the Patna Canal, 84 miles long, to irrigate 390,000 acres.
The Humirpore and Jhansi irrigation works consist of lakes and reservoirs, partly natural, partly artificial, and are under the direct control of the civil authorities (Friend of India; Annals of Indian Administration).
The Mahanadi ricer drains the fertile plain of Chatisgarh, in the Central Provinces, and falls into the Bay of Bengal after a course of 529 miles. Its basin an area of 45,000 square miles. It is liable to heavy but short-lived floods, and the province of Orissa at the deltas has long suffered from them. The E.I. Irrigation Company undertook to form a great anicut, and it was commenced in 1862 ; they failed, and in 1868 transferred their works to the Government for £1,050,000, but the water has never brought re munerative rates.
Canals, as watercourses for cultivation, have only since 1862 been in progress in the Bombay Presidency. A weir of 1550 feet has been thrown across the Girnar river, in Kandesh, and one across the Panjur. In Sultanate a weir 2000 feet long has been drawn across the Kistna, to feed channels 45 miles long. A large tank has been formed at Koorgaum near Barsec, a reservoir at Mukti near Mllin, and a tank at Hurtola. A reservoir has been constructed near Sholapur at a cost of £90,000. Large works have been planned for Gujerat and the W. Dekhan, and others for the Central Provinces ; for works from the Penchi river north of Nagpur, and from the Warda river to its south, and for the waters of the Betwa river to be led to irrigate Bundelkhand, which has been fifteen times desolated by famine in the last three cen turies. One-third of the water will go to the Patiala State.
In Madras, of the native engineering works, those for the application of water to irrigate fields and gardens, wells, tanks, and river channels take the first rank. There are innumerable tanks or artificial lakes of various sizes formed in basins, that near Cummum being seven miles in circumference. The most northern of its rivers, the Godarery, at Rajamundry, when about fifty-five miles from the sea, divides into two streams, forming a delta of rich alluvial country. A little above this point the river is 2000 yards broad, but it soon expands at Dowlaishwaram into a width of three times that extent, parted, however, by islands into four branches. An anicut has there been thrown across the channel, the united lengths of the four dams being 3955 yards. Upwards of two miles of stream is blocked up by a solid, well - protected mass of stone, in lime cement, with a breadth at the base of. nearly 130 feet, and a height of twelve feet above the natural surface of the water. Along the left bank of the river is one channel, another to Cocanada, and other channels ; the total being 840 miles of main channel, irrigating 780,000 acres of land. In 1871-72 there were 56,471 boats and rafts engaged in traffic on this canal.