Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/13

Rh shallow depressions, caused, some of them, by the action of the rains on pre-existing inequalities of the soil, and some of them proved by their shape to be the remains of former river beds: and they are invaluable, not only as a preservative from floods, but still more so as reservoirs from which the neighbouring fields are irrigated for the spring harvest, and the cattle provided with water during the dry months.

The average distance of water from the surface has been estimated in the reports on the Sárda Canal project at twenty-eight feet. But it varies greatly in different parts of the province. In the Tarái or sub-Himalayan tract it is rarely more than fifteen, and sometimes as little as four or five feet. South of the Gogra wells have to be sunk to a depth of from twenty-five to sixty feet before water is struck. The soil is naturally a rich alluvial deposit of light loam, stiffening in places into pure clay, and here and there degenerating into barren sand. By far the greater part of the land returned as unculturable is made up of the wide usar plains of the south and west, which are covered by a thick saline efflorescence known as reh, fatal to any growth except the hardiest grasses. So many contradictory theories have been advanced, and so little is known of the nature and causes of this agricultural curse, that the short preface to a Gazetteer is not the place for their consideration; but it seems unquestionably to be a frequent result of over-cropping, and that a thicker population does more to increase than any known remedy to obviate it. Except minute particles of gold, which are washed down by the hill torrents in quantities too infinitesimal to repay their collection, valuable minerals are not known to exist. Salt was manufactured to a large extent during the native rule, and might be still, if it were not for the direct preventive action of Government. Nodules of carbonate of lime, known as “kankar," are found in considerable deposits all over the province just below the surface, and afford an excellent material for hardening roads and the production of lime for building.

The animals and birds of Oudh are those which are found all over the Gangetic plain, but several species formerly common have now disappeared before the advancing population. Not long ago wild elephants were caught by the Rájas of Tulsipur in the forests which skirt the north of Gonda, and Government officials allowed remissions of revenue for damage which they did in villages far advanced into the plain. Now it may be occasionally reported that a solitary tusker has lost his way to the foot of the bills; but such instances are rarely well substantiated, and the animal is practically unknown. Herds of wild buffaloes formerly