Page:Professional papers on Indian Engineering (second series).djvu/265

 No. CCCV.

INUNDATIONS IN THE JALANDHAR DOAB.

[Vide Plate.]

By C. G. Faddy, Esq.

The recent disasters to the Scinde, Panjab and Delhi Railway between Phillor and Wazir Bholar having by their extent and magnitude drawn considerable attention to the subject, I append a few notes and remarks as to their origin and cause, as well as a few hints, which, if acted on, would, in my humble opinion, tend greatly to mitigate, if not altogether prevent, their repetition in future.

The Jalandhar Doab is in shape a large and irregular polygon, its boundaries being the Beas, the Siwaliks, and the Sutlej.

The Sutlej leaves the hills at Babhor and runs almost south, past Kirathpur and Rupar, where it takes a westerly direction flowing between Ludhiana and Phillor, as far as Aliwal, then it turns about north-west as far as Harriki, where it is joined by the Beas.

The Beas debouches from the Siwaliks near the old cantonments of Hajipur, it runs thence in a direction almost south-westerly, skirting the Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar districts.

The Siwaliks rise abruptly from the Sutlej opposite Rupar, and run almost north-west, terminating again at a place called Tagan Deo near Hajipur, about three miles from the Beas. The Siwaliks are very nearly 90 (ninety) miles in length, are of pliocene formation, consisting of strata of sand, alluvial earth, clay, boulders, shingle, and conglomerate, and in this district there are two ranges, the outer and inner Siwaliks, with their inner slopes terminating in what is called the Sohan valley, part of the drainage of which falls into the Sutlej, and the rest, which is comparative- ly speaking insignificant, into the Beas.