Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1895 — Wonderful Engineering Work. [ARTICLE]

Wonderful Engineering Work.

A wonderful engineering work has just been completed in India, which practically compels a river which formerly entered the sea on the western side of India to reverse its course, to pierce its way through the lofty central watershed, and flow down to the eastern coast, thus affording irrigation to a vast and arid region in which famines have been common for contiiries. This territory extended from the central watershed eastward to the Bay of Bengal. It occurred to an officer of the .Madras Engineers, Captain Caldwell, In 18u;{, that it might be possible to divert one of the western rivers, near its source in the hills, towards the east. The most important of those western-flowing rivers. the I’eriyar literally. “The Big River’’—rose not far from a headwater of (he Vaigai River, which runs southeastwards into the Bay of Bengal. But while the I’erlyar deluged tin* western coast strip with destructive floods, the Vaigai was almost completely exhausted on its course through the dry regions east of the watershed. Captain Caldwell’s project was again brought forward in 18(17 by another officer of the Madras Engineers, Major Ryves, and complete plans for diverting the waters of the Pcriynr into the Vaigai were drawn up. These included an enormous dam to close the valley of the Periyar, a vast reservoir to hold the waters thus collected, and the driving of a broad tunnel, nearly 7,000 feet long, to convey the overflow through the ridge to the dry channel of the Vaigai River. This huge work lias Just been finished at a total cost of about $2,500,000.