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 ;

BALLIA.

i8

Madras

The most remunerative wood

Presidency.

saunder’s

root

’

is

(Pterocarpus santalinus), used for dyeing,

‘red

the

first-class

specimens yielding sometimes 900 per cent, profit on cost of production. A British District in the Lieutenant-Governorship of the Ballia. North-Western Provinces, lying between 25° 39' 30" and 26° 13' n. lat., and between 83° 41' 23" and 84° 40" e. long.; with an area of 1144

—

square miles, and a population in 1881 of 924,763 persons. It was created on ist November 1879 out of the eastern pargands of Ghazi'pur

Bounded on the north and

and Azamgarh.

east by the Gogra from Gorakhpur and the Bengal District of on the south by the Ganges, which separates it from Shahabad

(Ghagra), which separates

Saran



it

The

and on the west by Azamgarh and Ghazipur.

administrative

head-quarters are at Ballia town.

Physical Aspects lies

between that

—This

.

river

District, part of the great plain of the

and the Gogra,

just

Ganges, above their confluence. It

—

may be

the modern alluvial formadivided into two nearly equal parts which lies along the banks of the rivers and the older formation, inland from the rivers, comprising the western portion of the District, which is also an alluvium deposited in past ages under conditions which do not now exist. The older formation, or upland (though there is but tion,



is distinguished by its greater depth of and by the invariable presence of kankar, a nodular carbonate of

a slight difference in elevation), soil,

Down

lime.

the middle of this tract extends a long irregular piece

of hollow land, deepening here and there into JhUs, and in the rainy

season forming one continuous jhil, which culminates in Tal Suraha, a

This lake is connected with perennial lake about 4 miles in diameter. the Ganges by a narrow, deep, and tortuous channel, the Kathiar Nadi,

which admits the Ganges floods

when

the river

appearance, and

is

much

in the rainy season,

The

falls again.

soil

of this tract

is

and drains the lake generally whitish in

subject in parts to efflorescence of reh

impure carbonate of soda, which creates barrenness

modern deposit

alluvial tract

—that which

is

is

in the soil.

if

The

and the newer

distinguishable into the older

seldom

—an

ever inundated by the rise of the river

unusual floods, and that which

submerged during wind their way through the new alluvial deposits which they themselves have formed, At every carry on a continual process of destruction and renewal. bend, one bank is being eroded, and the opposite shore is receiving a new alluvial deposit to fill up the void left by the receding river. The encroachment, at first violent and rapid, becomes more slow and gradual in the course of a few years, and finally ceases and then the current changes over to the other side, which is in turn diluviated. Thus, a site which 40 years ago was on the south bank of the Ganges, even

in

the floods of the rainy season.

The

is

as a rule

great rivers which



was found 20 years

later to

be several miles to the south of the

river.