Omaha daily bee., 1889-06-02

BOMBAY IL rs IHT rs ~ ITOm LONDON 70 Ma
pies, or about the distance that New York is
from Denver. The distance between Iceland
and Spain is just about as far as straight
line from the Himalayas to the apex
of the triangle and the area of the
VIII ole is equal to the size of Europe
without Russia, or nearly oue-half Of the
United States. II is country of mountains
and valleys. The lower part and the greater
part Of the center is an immense table Ian
and between this table land and
the Himaaya mountains there is a wide
strip of vast plains through which the mighty
Ganges runs and the bulk Of which has been
made by the rich fertilizing earth which she
has brought down from the mountains
There is no doubt but that in the far distant
past the greater part of india was an
island, and IL you could sink these Ganges
plains five hundred feet downward the sea
would rush in and the Himalayas would be
divided from the plateau of South aud Cen
trail India. These plains are the richest part
of India. They are the most thickly popu.
lated and 1t is from them that great bulk
of the rice and wheat OF India comes.
The wheat area OF India is increas-
ing year by year. 1t is now about equal to
the wheat area of the United States and Its
product competes with the America wheat
in the markets of London For this reason
these plains are doubly interesting to Amer
leans and the influence of the Ganges is felt
more and more every year in the stock ex
change of Chicago.
The Ganges not only made but she nour-
ishes these plains. She Is called by the Hin
doos Mother GangaN From her source in
the Himalayas to her mouth in the Bay of
Bengal, she has fall of more than two and
one-half miles, ana as a fertilizing bearer
SHE suRPAssEs ANY RIVER
on the face of the globe. Egypt Is the gift of
the Nile. You can lose Egypt IN these
plains, which are the gift of the Ganges
The mighty Nile, with ITS unknown source
does not carry down as much water as this
holy river of the Hindoos and her maximum
discharge at distance of 400 miles from the
ss sss to With aar o Gs onsrS nsf tributaries sres
than that of the Mississippi. Where the
Gangcs rises bursting forth from a Hima-
layain glacier IL is twenty-seven feet wiue
1t falls 500 feet in the first ten miles of its
feet 800 miles from its mouth. It's delta is as
wide as the distance from New York to
Washington, and hundreds of mouths run
from this width back in sort of u parallello-
The water of the Bay of Bengal is discol-
ored for miles by the mud brought down by
the Ganges, and the whole country is fertil.
lied by it.
The water is the color and thickness of pea
soup, and the silt or mud is so rich that these
vast plains use no other fertilizer. The
crops are harvested by pulling the stalks out
of the ground. No cows or horses are
allowed to pasture IN the fields and their
droppings are mixed with straw and
Ganges valley nature is always giving, but
never getting. Every atom of natural fer
tilizer save this Ganges silt, is taken from
the soil. Still the land is as rich as guano
and it produces from
TWO TO FOUR CROPS EVERY YEAR.
About Calcutta the alluvial deposit Is 400
feet deep, and an experiment was lately
made to get to the end or it. A we'll was
sunk, but at the distance of 2S1 feet the au-
ger broke. AT this point the end Of this rich
a.Ntlh hn.t not
fertiizing material brought down by the
Ganges has been lately estimated, and scier-
tifc investigation shows that some distance
above the point where it untes with the
nous amount of 355, ,000,0 tons. A thous-
and-ton ship is by no means small.
and a feet of 350,0OO such ships could not
carry this burden. The average freight car
is thirty-four feet long and it takes a strong
car to carry fifty TONS Suppose our freight
cars to be sixteen feet longer than they are.
Load upon each car fifty tons Of this fertl-
lizing mud and it would take train Of more
than seven million such cars to carry the
yearly fertilizing output of this great river.
Ii these cars were on single track the track
would have to be 67, 400 miles long. 1t would
reach twice around the earth and leave
enough cars to run two continuous trains
through the center. The most of this silt
and II there were daily fleets of 1000 ships
each containing l,400 tons of mud during
these four months they would just carry it.
But this IS the work Of the Ganges alone.
1t Is five times as much as is carried by the
Mississippi to the gulf and further down the
river, where the great Brahmaputra joins it
and flows out into its hundred mouths the silt
output is still greater. During the rainy
season alone the river here carries out enough
silt to load Ii, 600 ships with 1,400 tons each
every day for four months. During the
rainy season this whole delta of the Ganges
is covered with water to the extent of about
thirty feet. You see only the tops of the
trees and villages which are built upon the
hills and the river further up the country IS
diverted by canals from its course to every
part OF these vast plains. The best of the
wheat is irrigated and the water being al
lowed to lie upon the land drops the fertilizer
and enrches it, ALI over India, or through
the part have travelled see this irrigation
even now going on. Much of it is done in
the most primitive way Two half-naked
men stand just above the river with basket
hung by long ropes between them. This
basket is watertight and by swinging mo-
tiOn they scoop it down into the river and lift
the water up into canal above, from whence
1t runs off into other canals over the fields
Here at Benares bullocks are largely used
The water is stored in great wells and it is
drawn from them in skin bowls each of
which holds about bushel of water. The
bowl is pigs skin kept open with hoop of
wood and to its top by four strings is fasten-
ed rope. This rope runs over rude pulley
at the top of the well and at q distance of
twenty feet from it. it is tied to the yoke of
bullock, which, led by man, raises the
bucket to the top Of the well. Here it is
pulled over into trough. am told that this
mode Of irrigation Is faster and cheaper than
any of the machine methods employed and
see 1t everywhere. or late years the Eng
lish have been spending immense sums in
irrigating India, and millions OF acres of new
land have been brought under irrigation. In
1889
MORE THAN TWENTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS
was spent in Bengal alone, and the wheat
lands are found to produce best in
those provinces which can be irrigated l
do not remember the average wheat produc-
tion of the United States per acre. but l
think it Is larger than that Of India. Here it
only thirteen bushels per acre and the wheat
Is not more than a foot high. The heads of
the grain, however, are well filled out though
it is not worth as much in Mark Lane as the
better classes of Australian or California
wheat.
had always looked upon India as rice
eating country. / find that u great number
of the people here eat wheat and gram. In
northwestern India only about 10 per cent of
the people eat rice and in the prison at Agra
found that the prisoners were fed upon
grain H,varVWhara tho rnaaa of fha pannla