Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/12

ii A narrow strip of Government forest runs along the north, and the whole of the rest of the province is a fertile plain, with less than 1,500 square miles, or only about 6 per cent. of the area, unfit for cultivation. The surface here and there is varied with almost imperceptible undulations, but there is nowhere any striking feature to break that level horizon, or any obstacle but the rivers to the straight lines of communication. The country has a gentle slope from the north-west, where the highest point of 600 feet is reached on the Khairigarh plateau, to the south-eastern frontier, which in one place falls as low as only 230 feet above the sea level. This slope determines the course of the drainage, and is followed with more or less exactness by all the numerous streams. The principal of these—the Ganges, the Gumti, the Gogra, and the Rápti—have an aggregate dry-weather discharge of 18,800 cubic feet per second, and it has been estimated that the entire river discharge, including the smaller streams, rather exceeds 20,000 cubic feet, or half the quantity in the five rivers of the Punjab. But this estimate is probably rather too low. All along the north the surface is being gradually raised by fluvial action. The mountain torrents which pour into the Chauka and the Rápti spread during the rains over the neighbouring plain, leaving a thick deposit of detritus from the hills. These deposits are sometimes of piire sand, and at others of the richest clay; but the general result everywhere is a slow elevation of the land over which the drainage has to pass, which in places has caused the formation of large unhealthy swamps at the foot of the hills. All the main rivers, with the exception of the Gumti, and many of the smaller streams, have beds hardly sunk below the level of the surrounding country: swollen by the rains and melting of the snows where they take their rise, they burst through the insufficient restraint of a few feet of mud or sand, and carving out, now at one point and now at another, new courses, carry destruction to the villages on their banks. It is impossible to forecast the course these inroads will take, but following a well known law, their general direction is the north-west. Besides the great rivers, there are many streams of secondary importance, and the whole face of the country is seamed with innumerable small channels, which carry off the surplas water of the rains and dry up before the commencement of the hot season.

The drainage is further provided for by countless jhils or ponds, only two of which (Behti in Partabgarh and Sảndi in Hardoi), with areas of fourteen and ten square miles, can be dignified with the name of lakes. These jhíls are usually merely