Early History of Orissa

SR No.: 006922
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Amarchand Mittal
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society
Publication Year: 1957
Total Pages: 506
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 34

GeoGRAPHICAL FACTOR
lands, brings down a vast quantity of silt suspended in its water. But no sooner does it reach the level delta the river finds its current checked. The farther it goes the more sluggish it becomes and less able to carry down the sand with which it is charged. It accordingly deposits the silt in its bed and during floods, upon its banks. By degrees, therefore, the bed and the banks gradually rise until the river forms a sort of canal running along a higher level than the adjacent country. The silt accumulates more rapidly in the bed itself than upon the banks, which gets only an occasional over-flow—the channel gradually shallows, and its capacity as an outlet for the water which pours into it from above, diminishes. The same process goes on in every one of the distributaries into which the parent stream breaks up and their total discharging power becomes less and less adequate to carry off the water-supply to the sea.
The deltic rivers of Orissa form, therefore, a net-work of high level canals raised above the surrounding country and unable to furnish an outlet for the water poured into them at their heads. During summer their upper channels in the interior table-land dwindle into insignificance, but in the rainy season the same rivers issue from the table-land in tremendous floods.
As the river runs along the highest levels of the delta so the lowest levels lie about half-way between each set of their tributaries. The country, in fact, slopes downward from the river banks, and in times of flood it is impossible for the inundation to find its way back again into the river. The waters cover the crop-land even long after the river itself has subsided. They painfully search out the lines of drainage, accumulating in swamps, drowning the harvests, and poisoning the air with malaria, until they dry up or