Wells or reservoirs, known as the Bai, l3aori, or Baoli, have been formed in many parts of India, with flights of steps and a succession of platforms, enclosed by arches, leading down to the water.
Most of the waterworks constructed by the Muhammadans in India were undertaken to obtain water for their parks and palaces. It is to the Hindu races, Aryan and non-Aryan, and in recent times to the British, that India is indebted for the great tanks and irrigation canals which are now to be seen. The smaller tanks in the south of the Peninsula of India, all of Ilindu origin, aro multitudinous, and some of them are of great size. To Hindus also India is indebted for the great anicuts or dams which head back the waters of the Cauvery and the Colerun.
Some of the great irrigation works, both in Northern and Southern India, have been so con structed as to be available also for navigation. Navigation on the Orissa canals in 1877-78 yielded £3381 ; on the Midnapur canal, £10,692 ; and on the Sone canals, £5965, the aggregate being larger than was derived from irrigation. In Madras, boat tolls in the Godavery delta brought in £4496, and in the Kistna delta (Madras canals), £1718. The works of the Madras Irrigation Company on the Thmbildra were not made available for navigation until 1879. The canal was projected for irrigation and navigation, which should ex tend from Sunkesala, 17 miles above Kurnool, to the Kistnapatam estuary on the sea - coast of Nellore, and the Madras Irrigation Company undertook that part of it between Sunkesala and the Pennar river at Sumaiswaram, and subse quently to the town of Cuddapab. It was com pleted in 1871, but it has been financially a failure, attributable to the heavy charges for maintenance and establishment, to the unprofit able outlay on the navigation works, and the scarcity of labour.
In the Bombay Presidency, near Poona, the British have erected a masonry dam to form Lake Fife, one of the finest reservoirs in the world.
The British have drawn one great canal from the Ganges at Hardwar ; they have improved and enlarged an old canal which the Muhammadans brought to Dehli from the Jumna ; a great canal has been led from the river Sutlej, in the Sirhind division of the Panjab, another from the river Ravi north of Lahore, for the Amritsar district ; with many lesser streams for Multan, and for the in undation canals of the Derajats. In Behar a great canal has been taken from the Sone river ; in Orissa the Mahanadi has been dammed farther south, as has also the Krishna river at Bezwara, and the Cauvery and Colerun river near Trichina poly. But what is there accomplished on a very large scale by the British India Government is, throughout many parts of country, performed by the villagers themselves. For miles the Hindu cultivator will carry his tiny stream of water along the brow of mountains, round steep declivities, and across yawning gulfs or deep valleys, his primitive aqueducts being formed of stones and clay, the scooped-out trunks of palm trees and hollow bamboos. And sometimes, in order to bring the supply of water to the necessary height, the pe-cottah or the bucket-wheel is employed, worked by men, by oxen, by buffaloes, or by elephants, and in the more level tracts of the south of the Peninsula every little declivity is dammed up to gather the falling rain.
And, independent of the general benefits to the peopld, great profits have been made by the British Government in several cases, by restoring or repairing tanks and channels which had become ruined, such net profits amounting to from 10 to 45 per. cent., and in one instance to 250 per cent. And it is believed that the con struction of large storage reservoirs would return a high percentage on the outlay. The smaller tanks constructed by the people themselves well repay the labour employed, though to the Govern ment the construction of flat country tanks of the second class, or even of the third class, offer a very doubtful return.
The value of water to the cultivator is shown, first, by contrasting the yield of dry crops with that of rice and sugar-cane, from actual experi ments. From these it appeared that the net profit per acre on dry crops was 8s. 24d. ; on rice, £4, 16s. 10fd. • and on sugar-cane, £18, 6s. 6d. In the two last cases a very low rate for the water was assumed, viz. 12s. per acre for each crop of rice, and 24s. per acre for each crop of sugar-cane, as provisionally fixed by Government. A comparison was made between dry crops and rice, and dry crops occasionally flooded, based on the average price of grain extending over five years, and deducting one-fourth from the gross value of the crop in the case of dry crops, and one-sixth in the case of wet crops, to cover loss in bad years. Without deducting the water rate, the difference in the net value of the crops was as follows :—Between dry crops and rice, taking the most unfavourable comparison, 25s. 7d. ; between dry, crops and the same occasionally irrigated, 30s. 8d. ; and between two dry crops and sugar-cane (which occupied ten months of the year), £8, 2s. 8d. But if water be stored, so as to allow a second crop of rice to be grown, the advantages are nearly doubled. Pro vided a water rate proportioned to the value of the water were fixed, irrigation, would benefit the cultivator to the extent of 8s. 6d., or 50 per cent., and yield a gross return on the outlay of 14s. 9d. per acre ; and if water were stored for a second crop, the gain to the cultivator would be 19s. 9d., or more than 100 per cent., and the return to the agency supplying the water 37s. 3d. per acre, the cultivator not having to expend any capital in im provements. Of the 37s. 3d. per acre profit, 22s. 6d. was about the sum due to the storage of water, supposing such storage works to be added to dis tribution works already constructed. The cost of large works of irrigation might be safely reckoned at £7 per acre on an average, or £8, 15s. if 5 per cent. on one-half the capital for ten years during construction were added. If the profits made by the application of the water were divided in the proportion of one-third to the cultivator and two thirds to the agency supplying the water, works of channel irrigation would benefit the cultivator, as above stated, to the extent of 50 per cent., and yield a net return of 7'4 per cent. on the capital expended. It appears probable that, in the most favourable localities, 7000 cubic yards of water could be stored for £1, and in others 4250 cubic yards.