of diplomatic service. But Abbott Lawrence, in his brilliant successes, in his arduous trusts, never swerved from the severe simplicity of an upright, kind-hearted, conscientious, Christian man. His keen and commanding intellect was under the control of lofty principle and benevolent purpose. Our country has had no more worthy or more honored representative abroad, no more loyal office-bearer in her councils, no more faithful and exemplary citizen in the relations and duties of common life. Our University is indebted to him for an endowment, for which coming generations must revere his memory; and to him chiefly do we owe it, that the first name of the age in natural science is enrolled in its corps of professors, and is to be for ever identified with the exploration of our lakes and mountains, and the analysis of the types of animated nature peculiar to our Western Continent. His life-work was well done; and the serene peace, and the "hope full of immortality," which irradiated its closing hours, affix the attestation of a more than human approval to the unanimous voice of a bereaved community.

ART. XI.-1. Short Account of the Ganges Canal. Roorkee. April, 1854. 4to.

2. The Delhi Gazette. April 12th, 1854.

In the number of our journal for October, 1853, an account was given of the works for irrigation, undertaken by the British government, in the Northwest Provinces of India, and especially of the great Ganges Canal, then in progress of construction. Since that time this magnificent work has been mainly completed, and is now in successful operation. Its opening took place on the 8th of April, 1854, and was celebrated in a manner worthy of the peculiar interest of the occasion. The celebration was indeed of a character so unique, and the work which it inaugurated is of such grand proportions and such noble design, that an account of it can hardly be without interest, even to the most distant and

matter-of-fact reader, while to those to whom the Ganges is still the mysterious river of the farthest East, a stream of the imagination rather than of reality, taking its rise in the golden mists of the morning, and flowing through the untracked regions of fancy, it will give a new delight, and one not incongruous with old associations, to learn of its becoming invested in our days with a double sanctity, and to hear of the pomp with which it at last began to bestow a return for the gifts and offerings that had been lavished upon it by generation after generation of worshippers.

"The great motive," says the Short Account of the Ganges Canal,* "by which the British government was led to sanction the Ganges Canal in the first instance, and to carry it forward from its commencement to its close, with all the resources in men, money, and materials that could be procured, was to secure to its people, in the country between the rivers Ganges and Jumna, an immunity from the pains and losses that famine brings with it. The country is inhabited by nearly six millions of souls." The motive was an ample one; for twice every year does the whole huge mass of population in these densely crowded provinces stand trembling, as it were, on the brink of a famine. If the rain fails in July and August, their summer crops perish. If the rain fails in December and January, their winter crops die. a country where the means of internal communication are poor and scanty, where agriculture, developed by no laborsaving arts, produces little more than is needed for immediate consumption, and where, consequently, the greater part of the people have no reserved stores to fall back upon in seasons of distress, the failure of the crops is followed by famine in its most frightful aspect. The protection against these evils afforded by canal irrigation had been shown in the last great famine, that of 1837 and 1838, along the lines of the small canals then in operation. The cost of this famine to the government in the unirrigated districts, in money spent and in land-revenue remitted, was not less than five millions

* Several thousand copies of this pamphlet were printed in English, Oordoo, and Hindi, for distribution among the crowds who assembled to join in the celebration.

of dollars, and it became obvious that the construction of works which should secure the country against a repetition of such calamities was a matter of the highest importance as well to the government as to the people.

The proposal to use the waters of the Ganges in irrigating the districts most exposed to famine was, however, one involving so many difficulties, and was so stupendous a design, even if there had been no peculiar difficulties to surmount, that it is not surprising that its energetic and able originator, Colonel (now Sir Proby) Cautley, K. C. B., should for a long time have found it difficult to gain the adherence of the government to his plans. With untiring perseverance and clear foresight he urged the importance and the practicability of the work. At length it received the needed sanction; but new obstacles intervened, and it can hardly be said to have been fairly in progress till 1848. After that time, under the efficient and liberal administration of the Marquis of Dalhousie, it advanced rapidly and with every aid to its completion.

Starting from Hurdwar, where the Ganges breaks, a rapid, pure, and plentiful stream, through the range of Sub-Himalayas, known as the Sewalic hills, it is, when fully completed, to draw from the river 6,750 cubic feet of water per second, out of about 8,000, which constitute at this point the whole average volume of the stream. The most formidable obstacles to the construction of the canal occurred within the first twenty miles of its course, in carrying it across the line of Himalayan drainage between Hurdwar and Roorkee, a station which has been constituted the engineering headquarters of the work. From Roorkee it stretches southward down the dry plain between the Ganges and the Jumna. Pouring out fertility and abundance, it throws off immense branches both to the right and left, and continues its prosperous course till its diminished flow re-enters the Ganges at Cawnpoor, having traversed, with its branches, a total distance of 898 miles. The cost of this immense work, "from the period of its commencement to the time when its full accounts will be settled, cannot fall much short of fifteen millions of rupees," or seven and a half millions of dollars, and on this sum the direct and indirect annual returns to

government, in water-rent and in increase of land-revenue, may fairly be estimated at not less than fourteen per cent. A work, the largest of its kind in the world, adapted for navigation as well as for irrigation, provided with every appliance that skilful and forethinking science and long experience could devise to secure its greatest efficiency, designed not less for the benefit of a remote future than of the present age, it is not surprising that its progress and completion should have excited general and deep interest throughout India, both among the English and the natives.

During 1853 the main body of the canal was so far finished, that it was determined that its formal opening should take place in the course of the next year, and that it should be celebrated with appropriate ceremonies. Meanwhile the health of Colonel Cautley, who had superintended the execution of his design from its commencement, had given way, after thirty years of active service, and his return to England before another hot season became imperatively necessary. It was consequently decided that the opening of "his immortal work," as it was well termed by the Governor-General, should take place in the spring, and the 8th of April, 1854, was fixed upon as the day of the celebration of which Roorkee was to be the scene. The motive for the selection of this place, instead of the actual head of the canal, lay not merely in the fact that it was the engineering head-quarters of the canal, the seat of the new College of Civil Engineering, and of the great workshop, or factory, from which the Northwest of India is supplied with the more important articles required to meet the varied demands of the public works, but also in the fact, that at this point are the most important and striking works belonging to the canal. It is here that the canal crosses the valley and bed of the Solani River. For this purpose a continuous embankment was thrown up, of sufficient solidity to support the vast stream that was to flow upon it. "It is about three miles in length, protected throughout with masonry walls, having steps on their water faces for the convenience and comfort of the people. But it was requisite to make provision for passing the Solani River, which is one of the great drainage lines of the Sewalics, through

this embankment, and hence arose the necessity for the Solani masonry aqueduct, the most stupendous work on the whole line of the canal. This is in point of fact a bridge over the Solani, of fifteen arches, each having a span of fifty feet."* On this great work, "the greatest of its kind in the world," not less than a million and a half of dollars have been expended. The volume of water which this aqueduct has to support is so enormous, that the utmost solidity and massiveness were sought in its construction, so that its piers and arches have an almost Cyclopean character.

On the bank above the natural river, and above this great stone-bed of the far larger artificial stream, stands Roorkee,— the appropriate place for the approaching ceremonies. As the time fixed drew near, every preparation was made for the successful opening of the work in which so many interests were engaged. The fame of the great undertaking, and of its near completion, had been spread throughout India by the multitudes of pilgrims who annually resort to Hurdwar to purify themselves in the sacred current, and to carry away the water to the farthest regions of the country. From the most distant parts of India pilgrims came up this year, not only to visit the holy places, but to be present on this occasion, when the revered Ganges was about to leave her ancient and hallowed channel for one formed for her by the hands of strangers. In the first days of April the town was crowded. English officers began to come in from all quarters, and from immense distances, - from Calcutta on the east, Indore, on the south, and Mooltan on the west. The young Maha Rajah Scindia, whose name perpetuates the remembrance of a bold enemy, of hard fighting, and the desolation of war, came from Gwalior, his remote and famous city, to witness and take part in the celebration of this work of peace. On every side, the roads were dusty with travellers.

On the first of April,† the real opening of the canal took place at Hurdwar, and the water flowed down about ten miles, and was then passed off at one of the great dams.

* Short Account, p. 8.

We derive our information concerning the events of this and the subsequent days from a private narrative, as well as from published accounts.