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Bengal (State of British India)

a state of British India reconstituted in 1905 and 1912 from the BENGAL former Bengal presidency and provinces.

Area, 78,699 square miles; pop. about 50,000,000.

Topography. As a whole Bengal consists of plains, there being few remarkable elevations, though it is surrounded with lofty mountains. It is intersected in all directions by rivers, mostly tributaries of its two great rivers, the Ganges and Brahmaputra, which annually, in June and July, inundate a large part of the region. The Sundarbans or Sunderbunds (from being covered with the sunder tree), that portion of the country through which the numerous branches of the Ganges seek the sea, about 150 miles from E. to W. and about 160 from N. to S., is traversed in all directions by water courses, and interspersed with numerous sheets of stagnant water. The country is subject to great extremes of heat. The most unhealthful period is the latter part of the rainy season. The mean temperature of the whole year varies between 80° F. in Orissa, and 74° F. in Assam, that of Calcutta being 79°. The heaviest rainfall occurs in eastern Bengal, the annual average amounting to over 100 inches.

Productions. - Besides rice and other grains, which form, along with fruits, the principal food of the population, there may be noted among the agricultural products indigo, opium, cane sugar, tobacco, betel, cotton, and the jute and sunn plants. Tea is now extensively grown in some places, notably in Darjeeling district and Chittagong. Cinchona is cultivated in Darjeeling and Sikkim. The forests cover 12,000 square miles, the principal forest trees being the sal on the Himalaya slopes, sál and teak in Orissa. Wild animals are most numerous in the Sundarbans and Orissa, snakes being remarkably abundant in the latter district. The principal minerals coal, iron, and salt. Coal is worked at Raniganj, in Bardwán district, where the seams are about 8 feet in thickness, and iron in the district of Bírbhúm, in the same division. Salt is obtained from the maritime districts of Orissa. The imports in 1919 were 64,04,52,684 rupees, and the exports 105,71,68,192 rupees. are Manufactures. - The principal manufactures are cotton piece goods of various descriptions, jute fabrics, blanketing, and silks. Muslins of the most beautiful and delicate texture were formerly made at Dacca, but the manufacture is almost extinct. Sericulture is carried on more largely in Bengal than in any other part of India, and silk weaving is a leading industry in many of the districts. The commerce, both internal and external, is