Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1889-06-27
A WONDERFUL RIVER.
THE CANOES, THAT NoURIsHEs
THE PLAINS OF INDIA.
The Great Part 1t Plays as Fertil-
izer Bearer-The Worlds Most
Densely Populated Region.

I
ter, is a wonderful river, and how won
derful it is, it is impossible to know
without understanding the geography OF
/ this semi-continent of India. If you
will take your map of Asia you will find
that India is much the shape of an
equilateral triangle, the base of which
is the Himalaya Mountains and the
apex of which rests in the Indian Ocean.
Each side of this triangle is nearly two
thousand miles long, and two sides of it
are almost bounded by water. 1t is a
country of magnificent distances. From
Calcutta to Bombay is as far as from
London to Naples OF about the distance
that New York is from Denver. The dis
lance between Iceland and Spain is just
about as far as a straight line from the
Himalays to the apex of the triangle,
and the area of the whole is equal to the
size of Europe without Russia, or near
ly one half of the United States. 1t is a
country of mountains and valleys. The
lower part and the greater part Of the
centre is an immense table land, and
between this table land and the Hima-
laya 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 that in the far dis
tant past the greater part of India was
an island, and if you could sink these
Ganges plains 500 feet downward the
sea would rush in and the Himalayas
would be divided from the plateau of
South and Central India These plains
are the richest part of India. They are
the most thickly populated and it is
from them that the great bulk Of the
rice and wheat from India comes. The
wheat area Of India is increasing year
by year. 1t is now about equal to the
wheat area of the United States and its
product completes with the American
wheat in the markets of London. For
this reason these plains are doubly in
teresting to Americans, and the infiu-
ence of the Gauges is felt more and
more every year in the Stock Exchange
Of Chi ago.
The Ganges not only made but she
nounshes these plains. She is well
called by the Hindoos ''Mother Ganga.
From her source in the Himalayas to her
mouth in the Bay Of Bengal, she has Q
fall of more than ID miles, aud
as fertilizing bearer, she surpasses any
river on the face of the globe. Egypt is
the gift of the Nile. You could lose
Egypt in these plains, which are the
gift of the Gauges. The mighty Nile,
with its unknown source, does not carry
down as much water MS this holy river
of the Hindoos, and her maximum dis
charge at distance of 400 miles from
the sea, with many of her tributaries
yet to hear from, is one third greater
than that of the Mississippi. Where the
Gauges rises bursting forth from a Him
alayan glacier, it is q feet wide. 1t falls
$500 feet in the first ten miles of its
course and it has an average depth Of
35 feet 500 miles from its mouth. Its
delta is MS wide as the distance from
New York TO Washington, and hundreds
of mouths run from this width back in
a sort of a parallelogram for two hun
bred miles more, where they unite. The
water of the Bay of Bengal is discolored
for miles by the mrd brought down by
the Ganges, and the whole country is
fortified by it,
4lt Nht'-A ID tlA' 1bipA ttAA SAAAbhlit'o
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 mud and then
dried and used as fuel. In this Ganges
valley Nature is always giving but never
getting. Every atom Of natural fertilizer
save this Ganges silt is taken from the
soil Still the land is rs rich as guano,
and it produces from two TO four crops
every year. About Calcutta the alluvial
deposit is 400 feet deep, and an expert
ment was lately made to get to the end
of it. A well was sunk, but at the dis
lance of 4S1 feet the anger broke. At
this point the end of this rich soil had
not been reached.
The amount Of iertilizing material
brought down by the Ganges has been
lately estimated, and scientific investi
CATION shows that sonse distance above
the point where it unites with the
Brahmapootra its yearly burden is the
enormous amount Of 355, 900, 900 tons.
A thousand-ton ship is by no means
small, and feet of $50, 900 such ships
could not carry this burden The aver
age freight car is thirty-four feet long.
and it takes strong car to carry fifty
tons. Suppose our freight cars to be
each sixteen feet longer than they are
Load upon each car fifty tons Of this
fertilizing mud, and it would take a
train of more than seven million such
cars to carry the yearly fcrtilizing
output of this gr at river. If these ears
were ON a single track the track would
have to be 81, 400 miles long. 1t would
reach twice around the earth and leave
enough cars over to run two continuous
trains through the centre. The most of
this silt.comes down during four months
of the year, and if there were daily
fleets Of 1900 ships each containing
1,400 tons Of mud, during these four
months they would inst 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 I