DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15172#0238
CHAP. II.
THE INDUS AND GANGES.
203
I am informed that the height of the instrument
registered in Calcutta may be twenty-five feet above
the level of the sea; and as the city of Umritsir is
about the same level as Lahore (since both stand
on the plains of the Punjab), it must have an eleva-
tion of about 900 feet from the sea.
Having now stated the sum of our knowledge re-
garding this subject, it remains to be considered in
what, and how great a proportion, the slope is to be
distributed among the rivers from Lahore down-
wards. By a comparison with the Ganges in Ren-
nell's work, and the late treatise to which I have
alluded, and assisted by the same scientific gentle-
man, to whom I have before expressed my obliga-
tions, we cannot give a greater fall downwards from
Mittun, where the Indus receives the Punjab rivers,
than six, or perhaps five, inches per mile: nor can
we allow more than one fourth of 900 feet as the
height of that place above the level of the sea; for
the river has not increased here in velocity of
current, though we have neared the mountains.
Mittun is half way to Lahore, about 500 miles from
the sea, and nearly 220 feet above it. The remain-
ing 680 feet we may fairly apportion to the Punjab
rivers, from their greater rapidity of course ; which
would give them a fall of twelve inches per mile.
In these facts, we have additional proof of the
greater bulk of the Indus, as compared with the
Ganges : when at the lowest, it retains a velocity of
two miles and a half, with a medial depth of fifteen
feet, and though running on as great, if not a greater
slope than that river, never empties itself in an
THE INDUS AND GANGES.
203
I am informed that the height of the instrument
registered in Calcutta may be twenty-five feet above
the level of the sea; and as the city of Umritsir is
about the same level as Lahore (since both stand
on the plains of the Punjab), it must have an eleva-
tion of about 900 feet from the sea.
Having now stated the sum of our knowledge re-
garding this subject, it remains to be considered in
what, and how great a proportion, the slope is to be
distributed among the rivers from Lahore down-
wards. By a comparison with the Ganges in Ren-
nell's work, and the late treatise to which I have
alluded, and assisted by the same scientific gentle-
man, to whom I have before expressed my obliga-
tions, we cannot give a greater fall downwards from
Mittun, where the Indus receives the Punjab rivers,
than six, or perhaps five, inches per mile: nor can
we allow more than one fourth of 900 feet as the
height of that place above the level of the sea; for
the river has not increased here in velocity of
current, though we have neared the mountains.
Mittun is half way to Lahore, about 500 miles from
the sea, and nearly 220 feet above it. The remain-
ing 680 feet we may fairly apportion to the Punjab
rivers, from their greater rapidity of course ; which
would give them a fall of twelve inches per mile.
In these facts, we have additional proof of the
greater bulk of the Indus, as compared with the
Ganges : when at the lowest, it retains a velocity of
two miles and a half, with a medial depth of fifteen
feet, and though running on as great, if not a greater
slope than that river, never empties itself in an