orrent, it is a most insignificant
stream. The Markanda, when in flood, carries a large volume of water,
and below the junction the small channel of the Sarusti cannot carry the
tribute received, which spreads out into a shallow lake called the
Sainsa _jhil_. This has been utilized for the supply of the little
Sarusti canal, which is intended to do the work formerly effected in a
rude way by throwing _bands_ or embankments across the bed of the
stream, and forcing the water over the surrounding lands. The same
wasteful form of irrigation was used on a large scale on the Ghagar and
is still practised on its upper reaches. Lower down earthen _bands_ have
been superceded by a masonry weir at Otu in the Hissar district. The
northern and southern Ghagar canals, which irrigate lands in Hissar and
Bikaner, take off from this weir.

~Action of Torrents.~--The Ghagar is large enough to exhibit all the three
stages which a _cho_ or torrent of intermittent flow passes through.
Such a stream begins in the hills with a well-defined boulder-strewn
bed, which is never dry. Reaching the plains the bed of a cho becomes a
wide expanse of white sand, hardly below the level of the adjoining
country, with a thread of water passing down it in the cold weather. But
from time to time in the rainy season the channel is full from bank to
bank and the waters spill far and wide over the fields. Sudden spates
sometimes sweep away men and cattle before they can get across. If, as
in Hoshyarpur, the _chos_ flow into a rich plain from hills composed of
friable sandstone and largely denuded of tree-growth, they are in their
second stage most destructive. After long delay an Act was passed in
1900, which gives the government large powers for the protection of
trees in the Siwaliks and the reclamation of torrent beds in the plains.
The process of recovery cannot be rapid, but a measure of success has
already been attained. It must not be supposed that the action of _chos_
in this second stage is uniformly bad. Some carry silt as well as sand,
and the very light loam which the great Markanda _cho_ has spread over
the country on its banks is worth much more to the farmer than the stiff
clay it has overlaid. Many _chos_ do not pass into the third stage, when
all the sand has been dropped, and the bed shrinks into a narrow
ditch-like channel with steep clay banks. The inundations of torrents
like the Degh and the Ghagar after this stage is reached convert the