The National Magazine. New Series. A Monthly Review. April 1902

But it is now 45 years since first ascended the Hooghly and saw the upper reaches of it and the Bhagirati and still further up the Sone the Jumna and the Ganges and I wish to notice a few points overlooked by R. C. B. In 1857 the volume of water in all those rivers in the dry season was more than three times as much as it appears to be today. [...] R. C. B. notices the diversion of the Damuda from the Hooghly above that town about a hundred years ago and notes that the depth of the upper 20 miles of the "tidal" portion of the Hooghly has been reduced to half its quantity during the past 20 years. [...] If the Chamber of Commerce of Calcutta does not wake up and persuade the Government to put a stop to the depletion of the Indian rivers for the purposes of irrigation„in another so years Calcutta will be as completely cut of from the sea as Birmingham is and the commerce and prosperity of the city will be destroyed. [...] If R. C. B. will step in and induce the Chamber of Commerce to appoint a committee of gentlemen interested in the prosperity of Calcutta which depends on the navigation of the Hooghly and also a good deal on the navigation of the inland rivers and visit the upper provinces in the cold season and compare the volume of water in the different irrigation canals with that left in the livers they wi [...] The army the schools institutions like the Madrassah at Aligarh and the athletic clubs do much to create manliness and selreliance and these are the characteristics which we wish to see introduced more extensively into the mental as well as the physical activity of the people.