Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/728

CALCULUS. See Differential and Integral Calculus.

CALCUTTA, the capital of India, and seat of the Supreme Government, is situated on the east bank of the Hugli River, in latitude 22 33 47" N. and longitude 88 23 34" E. It lies about 80 miles from the seaboard, and receives the accumulated produce which the two great river systems of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra collect throughout the provinces of Bengal and Assam. From a cluster of mud villages at the close of the 1 7th century, it has advanced with a rapid growth to a densely inhabited metropolis, which, with its four suburbs, contains a popu lation of 892,429 souls. The central portion, which forms the Calcutta municipality, has a population returned in 1872 at 447,601. In the same year its maritime trade amounted to 52,} millions sterling, of which the exports formed 31f millions, and the imports 20/, showing an excess of exports over imports of 1 1 millions sterling.

The history of Calcutta practically dates from the year 168G. In 1596 it had obtained a brief entry as a rent- paying village in the survey of Bengal executed by com mand of the Emperor Akbar. But it was not till 90 years later that it emerged into history. In 1GS6 the English merchants at Hugli, finding themselves compelled to quit their factory in consequence of a rupture with the Mughul authorities, retreated about 26 miles down the river to Sutanati, a village on the banks of the Hugli, now within the boundaries of Calcutta. Their new settlement soon extended itself along the river bank to the then village of Calcutta, and by degrees the cluster of neighbouring hamlets grew into the present town. In 1689-90 the Bengal servants of the East India Company determined to make it their headquarters. In 1696 they built the original Fort William, and in 1700 they formally purchased the three villages of Sutdnati, Calcutta, and Gobindpur from Prince Azim, son of the Emperor Aurungzebe.

Ground-Plan of Calcutta. 1. Almshouses. 2. Leper Asylum. 3. Church Mission. 4. Catholic College. 5. Baptist Chapel .and Mission. G. St Thomas K.C. Church. 7. Asiatic Society. 8. Small Cause Court. 9. Church (R.C.) of the Sacred Heart. 10. Mosque. 11. Baptist Chapel. 12. Home Department. 13. Treasury. 14. Town Hall. 15. Supreme Court 1(>. Bank of Bengal. 17. Stationery Office. 18. Metcalf Hall. 19. St John s Church. 20. Foreign Department. 21. New Post Office. 22. Sudder Dewanny Adulul. 23. Government Iron Bridge Yard.

The site thus chosen had an excellent anchorage, and was defended by the river from the Marhattas, who harried the districts on the other side. A fort, subsequently rebuilt on the Vauban principle, and a moat, designed to form a semicircle round the town, and to be connected at both ends with the river, but which was never completed, combined with the natural position of Calcutta to render it one of the safest places for trade in India during the expiring struggles of the Mughul empire. It grew up without any fixed plan, and with little regard to the sanitary arrangements required for a town. Some parts of it lie below water mark on the Hugli, and its low level throughout rendered its drainage a most difficult problem. Until far on in the last century, the jungle and paddy fields closely hemmed in the European mansions with a circle of malaria ; the vast plain (maiddn), with its gardens and promenades, where the fashion of Calcutta now displays itself every evening, was then a swamp during three months of each year ; the spacious quadrangle known as Wellington Square was built upon a filthy creek. A legend relates how one-fourth of the European inhabitants perished in twelve months, and during seventy years the mortality was so great that the name of Calcutta, derived from the village of Kalighat, was identified by mariners with Golgotha, the place of a skull.

The chief event in the history of Calcutta is the sack of

the town and the capture of Fort William in 1756, by Suraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal. The majority of the English officials took ship and fled to the mouth of the Hugli River. The Europeans who remained were com pelled, after a short resistance, to surrender themselves to the mercies of the young prince. The prisoners, number ing 146 persons, were driven at the point of the sword into the guard-room, a chamber scarcely 20 feet square, with but two small windows. Next morning only 23 were taken out alive, among them Mr Holwell, the annalist of the " Black Hole." This event took place on June 20, 1756. The Mahometans retained possession of Calcutta

for about seven months, and during this brief period the