an excellent form of relief labour. Cotton's sanguine estimates had to be largely exceeded; the cultivators were slow to avail themselves of the water supply; rates had to be lowered to an unremunerative figure; the company failed to raise further capital, and the canals were taken over by the government in 1869. Though no financial success, they are of great value in time of drought.
From July 1867 Rundall was chief irrigation engineer and joint secretary to the Bengal government, and the Son canals, which had also been projected by the East India Irrigation and Canal Company, for the service of the Shahabad, Gaya, and Patna districts, were commenced under his orders. By them more than half a million acres are annually watered, and they yield about 4 per cent, on the capital invested. From April 1872 he was inspector-general of irrigation and deputy secretary to the government of India, and was thus brought into close touch with the progress of irrigation throughout the country. He gained a reputation for enthusiasm, soundness of judgment, and accuracy in estimates. During his service, which terminated in April 1874, he had only once taken leave home.
Rundall, who had been promoted colonel in June 1868 and major-general in March 1869, was created a C.S.I. in Dec. 1875, and was made colonel commandant of the royal engineers in 1876. He became lieutenant-general at the end of 1878, and general in Nov. 1885, being placed on the unemployed supernumerary list in July 1881.
At the invitation of the Khedive Ismail, Rundall examined the delta of the Nile in 1876-7, and submitted plans and estimates for irrigation. His proposals, which included the construction of a mighty dam not far from the site of the present one at Assouan, were frustrated by the bankruptcy of the country. Rundall' s services were engaged by a syndicate formed in 1883 to construct a Palestinian canal admitting of the passage of the largest vessels from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, by way of the Jordan Valley and the Gulf of Akaba, but the project did not mature (cf. his ’The Highway of Egypt: Is it the Suez Canal or any other Route between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea?' London 1882). After retirement he lectured on Indian irrigation at the Chatham school of military engineering, and some of the lectures were privately printed (Chatham, 1876). He also wrote the following pamphlets, 'Notes on Report of Ganges Canal Committee' (Cuttack, 1866); 'Memo, on the Madras Irrigation Company's Works at Kumool' (Dorking, undated); and a 'Review of Progress of Irrigation Schemes in relation to Famine Aspects,' placed before a Parliamentary select committee in 1878. He died at Moffat, N.B., at the house of his son-in-law, the Rev. Francis Wingate Pearse, headmaster of St. Ninian's school, on 30 Sept. 1908, and was buried at Moffat cemetery. He married on 8 Dec. 1846 Fanny Ada, daughter of Captain W. G. Seton-Burn, 3rd fight dragoons, and had three daughters and two sons, of whom the eldest is Colonel Frank Montagu Rundall, C.B., D.S.O., late 4th Gurkha rifles.
[Vibart's Addiscombe: its Heroes and Men of Note, 1894; Lady Hope's Life of (General Arthur Cotton, 1900; India List, 1908; Imp. Gaz. of India, 1908, articles on Orissa and Son canals; Journ. of Royal Engineers, vol. viii. Dec. 1908; The Times, 1 Oct. 1908; information kindly supplied by Colonel F. M. Rundall.]
RUSDEN, GEORGE WILLIAM (1819–1903), historian of Australia and New Zealand, born at Leith Hill Place, Surrey, on 9 July 1819, was third son of the Rev. George Keylock Rusden and Anne, only daughter of the Rev. Thomas Townsend. While yet a lad he emigrated to New South Wales in 1834 with his father, who was appointed chaplain for the Maitland district.
Rusden first tried his hand at pastoral work, but he soon turned to politics; from 1841 onwards he wrote for the press and lectured. On 4 July 1849 he became under the New South Wales government agent for national schools at Port Phillip; later he was transferred to Moreton Bay. When in 1851 the new colony of Victoria was constituted, he was appointed (10 Oct.) chief clerk in the colonial secretary's office, and on 11 Oct. 1852 clerk to the executive council. On 18 Nov. 1856, when a full parliament of two chambers was established, he became clerk of parliaments. In 1853 he joined the national board of education for Victoria and the council of the Melbourne University. Always deeply interested in Shakespeare, he had much to do with the establishment of the Shakespeare scholarships at that university in 1864.
Having gradually formed the idea of writing a history of Australasia, Rusden visited England in 1874 with a view to
