Page:Report of a Tour Through the Bengal Provinces of Patna, Gaya, Mongir and Bhagalpur; The Santal Parganas, Manbhum, Singhbhum and Birbhum; Bankura, Raniganj, Bardwan and Hughli in 1872-73.djvu/38

14 of the country. This declivity appears to be in a north-east direction, for the area extends in length from Patna to Lakhiserai, and in breadth about 30 miles south of and parallel to the Ganges. Within this limit the various rivers, but most especially those in the vicinity of Bihar, have for a long time past shown a decided tendency to work eastwards,—so much so, that artificial cuts, intended for irrigation, taken from the right or east bank of the various rivers, have in almost all cases enlarged beyond control, absorbing the entire discharge during the rains, allowing but a small portion of the flood discharge to pass down the natural old beds. The result of this state of things has in several instances proved doubly disastrous: 1st, by depriving the tracts along the west banks of the natural water-courses of their fair supply of water; and, 2ndly, sending an excessive volume down the artificial irrigation channels, to the destruction of the crops on their banks and of the banks themselves, thus entailing permanent loss of valuable land. When employed as an engineer in the district, I devoted much attention to the remedying of these evils, but I was too soon removed, and my schemes, approved of then, have not since received attention.

Independent of this tendency of the rivers to work eastwards, the diurnal rotation of the earth must tend to throw the water of all rivers flowing from the equator towards the poles of the earth against the right or east banks, and although the amount of the force thus brought to bear against the right banks is very minute, it is constantly at work. In obedience to both these tendencies, so far from expecting the Son to have worked westwards, we should expect it to work eastwards; but so many different circumstances are capable of producing an opposite result, that it need excite no wonder to find the Son working westwards, and I have no doubt that if sufficient time and attention could be bestowed on the subject, the cause which in the particular instance of the Son did produce the results as they exist could be definitely ascertained.

I must also notice a remarkable fact observed by General Cunningham and communicated to me, that the surface of the country in many parts of the district of Arrah is frequently composed of sand of the Son and not of the Ganges, tending thus to show that at one time the Son had flowed west of its present course. Too little, however, of facts, as regards the determination of this point, has hitherto been