Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

THE GREAT IRRIGATION WORKS OF INDIA. 245 the dam, and Dam and Tunnel. Lake Whiting. THE MARIKANAVE DAM, IN MYSORE. It is able to impound a lake of 40,000,000,000 cubic feet, with a greatest depth of 130 feet. Length of dam, 1,350 feet. 155 feet high, built across a narrow ravine at a point where the Periyar River passes be- tween two hills. The reservoir The Periyar forme(j foy will contain 13,300,000,000 cubic feet of water, about half of which is available for irrigation. This proportion is drawn off through a Stoney sluice gate, and a tunnel over a mile long cut through the solid rock, into the channel of the Vaigai River, down which it flows 86 miles to the plains, where it is distributed by means of a weir and an ordinary system of canals. In the Bombay Presidency are many reser- voirs. The two most important are Lake Whiting and Lake Fife. The first of these, formed by the Bhatgur dam, contains a gross volume of 5,313,000,000 cubic feet of water, of which 3,953,000,000 can be utilized. The water is drawn off below flows down the rocky bed of the Nira to a weir which di- verts it into a system of canals. The Bhatgur dam, of masonry and concrete, is 3,020 feet long, 127 feet high (maximum), and 76 feet wide (maximum) at the base. The catchment area of the basin above the dam is 128 square miles, and the annual rainfall on this area varies from 250 inches in the hills to 40 inches at the dam site. Heavy refins cause floods of 50,000 cubic feet per second, and to pass this enormous quantity the en- gineers have constructed two waste weirs with a clear waterway of 810 feet, over which the water passes eight feet deep—a truly impres- sive waterfall.