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 BENGAL. lower region of the Ganges

273

the richest and most productive portion

is

The other mighty river by Brahmaputra, the source of whose opposite or northern side of the same

of Bengal, and abounds in valuable produce.

which Bengal

intersected

is

the

is

is on the Himalayan Mountains from whose southern slopes the Ganges takes its rise. These two rivers proceed in diverging courses until they are more than 1200 miles asunder; and again approaching each other,

remotest tributary

The

intermix their waters before they reach the ocean.

minor

Bengal

rivers in

(Ghagra),

Son

(Soane),

(all

of which see separately) are

Gandak, Kusi, Tista;

the

principal

— the

Gogra

Hugli (Hoogly),

formed by the junction of the Bhagirathi and Jalangi farther to the west, the Damodar and Rupnarayan and in the south-west, the



Mahanadi, where the

or

Great River

‘

of Orissa.

’

In a level country

composed of yielding and loose

soil is

of the rivers are continually

shifting,

like Bengal,

materials, the courses

from the wearing away of their

banks, or from the water being turned

off,

by obstacles

in its course,

As the new channel gradually widens, the old bed of the river is left dry. The new channel into which the river flows is, of course, so much land lost, while the old bed constitutes into

a

different

channel.

an accession to the adjacent

estates.

diminished, while that of another

is

Thus, one man’s property enlarged or improved



is

and a

branch of Anglo-Indian jurisprudence has grown up, the particular province of which is the definition and regulation of the alluvial distinct

rights alike of private proprietors

Mineral Products given

—

Coal.

and of the

—A

State.

very brief enumeration

The

of the principal minerals of Bengal.

R.aniganj,

in

Bardwan

District,

demand

a

fuller

coal

has been

mines of

notice.

The

—

companies working within that tract in 1881 were The Bengal, Equitable, New Bi'rbhum, Apcar & Co., Barakhar, Alipur, Raniganj Coal Association, and Sib Kristo Dhar & Co., besides a

principal coal

number of

smaller

concerns.

The miners

are chiefly Santals

and

Dhangars and Kaoras. In the Ram'ganj coal-field there were in 1881 altogether 45 mines at work, of which In the 17 turned out more than 10,000 tons of coal each per annum. larger and better mines, coal is raised by steam power from pits and galleries and in the smaller mines or workings, by hand labour from open quarries. In the Ram’ganj coal-field alone, 6 steam engines, with an aggregate of 867 horse-power, were at work. Only one seam or set of seams of less thickness than 8^ feet was worked, and the average thickness of the seams at the Raniganj mines is about 15 or 16 feet. The pits are usually shallow; very few being more than 150 feet deep. The Bengal Coal Company, with its mines at Raniganj and to the Dr. Oldham, westward, is able to raise 250,000 tons of coal annually. the late superintendent of the Geological Survey, in his Report on the Baun's,

and the

earth-cutters



1

VOL.

II.

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