Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/477

1837.] square mite. In Bengal it it estimated at 203 to the square mile, and in the cultivated portion of Orissa it did not exceed, when Mr. 's report was compiled, 135 to the square mile. The population, whatever be its real amount, is almost entirely agricultural, as, with the exception of the soldiery stationed at Cathmandu, amounting to 6 or 7,000 men; and the chiefs and higher officers of Government every inhabitant is more or leis directly engaged in the culture of the soil. The artisans, religious orders, and persons employed in the government offices do not, it is true, actually labour in the field, but being almost universally the representatives of the Irish middlemen, and Scottish tacksmen, they come correctly under the denomination of Agriculturists. The poorer artisans, such as carpenters and brick-layers, divide their time between the practice of their trades and the culture of their little fields, while the better class of tradesmen, although enabled to confine the work of their own hands to their crafts, are invariably holders of land, sometimes cultivating it by means of hired labourers, but most commonly by the system of subletting to the Japoos, or the strictly speaking agricultural class of the Newars. The arrangement usually made by these land holders is for the receipt of one half the produce, the actual cultivator retaining the other, as his wages of his labour.

Formation of the valley soil.—The soil of the valley, although considerably diversified, is in the mass composed of alluvial deposite, there being no traces on the general surface either of the primary or secondary rocky formations; indeed, throughout the entire extent of both levels, there is not a stone of any magnitude, and scarce a pebble to be found. The only rocks accessible within the valley, are those composing the diminutive ranges described as spurs from the surrounding mountains, and transsecting the basin. These are of several kinds, some of them, as in the more easterly portion of the range which tends from the west towards Sussanally on the east, contain a considerable quantity of carbonate of lime, but so intimately blended with a clayey slate stone, as not to admit of being converted into quick lime by burning, although it will frequently effervesce on the application of muriatic acid.