Page:Madras journal of literature and science vol 2 new series 1857.djvu/195

1857.] the cubit is undefined, and areas of the same denomination, are derived from different multiples of Rod or Rope. Of the more definite terms, the Beega prevails in Bengal and the North-West Provinces. In Bengal it is 1,600 square yards, and in the North-West Provinces it is 3,025 square yards. In the Bombay Presidency it is not authoritatively defined, but averages about ¾ of an acre. The term is quite unknown in the Madras Presidency, where the authorised measure is the Cawnie of 57,600 square feet, or 1·3223 acre; there are also other local land measures, defined, but presenting great differences one from the other; as the chain of 3·64 acres, the seed-cottah of 1·62 acres, the vaylie of 6·6 acres, and the bullah of 3·82 acres.

The greater portion of the North-West Provinces of India has been surveyed by Government Officers. The area of each village (or rather parish, to use an English term) is given in Imperial acres, but the areas of the fields appertaining to each village, are given in local beegas. The introduction of the acre therefore was only partial. In the Surveys lately made in the Bombay Presidency, the area of each field is recorded in acres, not only in the English, but in the vernacular accounts, and the term is well known and understood among the people. In the Madras Presidency, the districts of Bellary and Cuddapah were measured field by field (as far as the land was cultivable) in acres, in 1803, and Kurnool in the same way in 1842. In Salem, the records of field measurements made about 1800, are entered both in the Native terms and their equivalents in acres, and the acre is by far the best known.

Under the above circumstances, the introduction of the Imperial acre seems not only most desirable, but quite feasible. Where lands have already been accurately measured, and contents recorded in Native terms, those terms might be converted into acres; and in the progress of the Surveys now going on, all measurements might be at once in acres. This plan has already been successfully adopted in the present re-survey of the Southern districts of Madras, and the acre is superseding the cawnie.

With regard to the subdivisions of the acre they have hitherto in the Madras Presidency been in 40ths (or Goontas), and