BENGAL, India (Hind. Ban gala, Skt. Vangalam, from Vanga), a province of India, administered by a governor and re constituted in 1905 and in 1912 from the for mer Bengal presidency and province, which included under its administration the native states of Bihar, Orissa and Chota Nagpur. As reconstructed the province of Bengal has an area of 78,700 square miles and a population (1911) of 45,500,000, mainly Hindus and Mo hammedans. The native states were also re constituted 1 April 1912 as the separate prov ince of Bihar and Orissa, administered by a lieutenant-governor.
Physical The general physical character of Bengal, which occupies the north east of India, is that of a practically level country, though it is surrounded with lofty chains of mountains. The northern part rests on the terraces of the Himalaya Mountains, the east is bounded by the Garos or Garrows chain and the west is ribbed with offsets of the Vindhya Mountains. It is intersected in all directions by rivers, the principal of which are the Ganges and Brahmaputra, whose annual inundations render the soil which they reach extremely fertile. In those tracts where this advantage is not enjoyed, the soil is thin, sel dom exceeding a few inches in depth. The most inhospitable part of Bengal is what is called the Sunderbunds (from being covered with the soondru or sunder tree), that portion of the country through which the numerous branches of the Ganges seek the sea, or the deltaic space lying between the Hoogly River and Chittagong, about 150 miles from east to west and about 160 from north to south. This district is infested with tigers, is traversed in all directions by watercourses, or nnllahs, and interspersed with numerous sheets of stagnant water called jheels, which abound with fish and waterfowl and are much resorted to by crocodiles.
Geology and In the northern part of Bengal, at the foot of the Himalayas, is a band of Tertiary formation; south from which, and along the course of the Ganges, more especially east from that river and in cluding the greater part of its delta •and that of the Brahmaputra, the country is wholly com posed of alluvium or modern detritus. Cal cutta stands upon strata of the transition series, which stretch west into Bihar, and are flanked north and south by tracts of crystalline forma tion. In the Garo Hills coal, iron and lime
stone are found, and nitre effloresces on the surface around Calcutta and elsewhere. Min eral springs are not numerous.
The principal rivers, besides the Ganges and Brahmaputra, the latter of which enters the province at its northeast extremity and falls into the Bay of Bengal near the prin cipal embouchure of the Ganges, are the Soo bunreka, which falls into the Bay of Bengal, in lat. 21° 35' north, south-southwest of the Hoogly; the Cosi or Coosee, which rises near Khatamandu in Nepal and falls into the Gan ges near Bhagalpur, in lat. 25° 20' N.; and the Dumooda, which, rising in Bihar, falls into the Hoogly about 22 miles below Calcutta. There are numerous other streams of less note, mostly tributaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra or their larger affluents.
Climate.— There is more regularity in the changes of the seasons in Bengal than perhaps in any other part of India; but it is subject to great extremes of heat, which, added to the humidity of its surface and the heavy dews that fall, render it generally unhealthy to Europeans. The prevalence of hot winds, which are some times loaded with sandy particles, is another source of disease. The seasons are distin guished by the terms hot, cold and rainy. The hot season continues from the beginning of March to the end of May, within which period the thermometer f requently rises to 100°, some times to 110°. The month of September is also often intensely hot, and when so is thc most unhealthy period of the year to natives as well as Europeans, owing to the profuse exhalations from stagnant waters left by the inundations and from a rank decaying vegetation. The rainy season commences in June and lasts till October. During the first two months of this period the rain is frequently so heavy that five inches of water have fallen in one day, the annual average bcing from 70 to 80 inches. It is in this season that the inundations take place and that the Ganges overflows its delta, cover ing the land with its waters for morc than 100 miles. The cold season, the most grateful and healthy of any to Europeans, continues from November to February, during which period north winds prevail, with a clear sky.