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.
s
