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.
