died whilst his book was still in the press, and thus never witnessed the success and popularity it achieved.

Whilst the forest staff were engaged upon the work of exploring the forests, a settlement branch was enquiring into the ownership of the land throughout the provinces. As has been already stated, owing to the internecine warfare which had proceeded for so long our advent into the provinces, much land had gone out of cultivation; for no one dared to lay claim to the ownership of land, since this assumption led to robbery and extortion from the owner by the chief robber who happened to be paramount for the time being in the district. Our orderly rule changed this aspect of affairs, and aspirants to the ownership of the land appeared on all sides.

To settle these matters and to prevent the culturable wastes being seized by immigrant settlers, the Government appointed special officers to undertake settlement work under a branch termed "The Settlement of the Land Revenue." The result of the elaborate and laborious enquiries undertaken, for every village and hamlet had to be visited and every acre of land appraised and assessed, was that where any title to a property had been established, the freehold, bearing liability to the fixed Government rent-charge, was bestowed on the claimant, while all land to which no such claim could be established was declared the unhampered property of the State. Most of the hill chiefs were admitted to the full ownership of the whole of their enormous wastes, though certain restrictions as to the destruction of the forests were imposed on them. The area which remained to the State in the highlands after the settlement was only 14,500 square miles, of which 9500 was considered to be culturable, and the rest barren waste. A portion of this area was reserved as State Forest, but in every district much good land remained available for sale or lease, under definite rules which were enacted.

The total population of this region at that time was about four and one-third millions; of these three and one-third millions were Aryans and one million only belonged to the aboriginal races. These latter comprised Gonds (826,484), who gave the name of Gondwana to the country and have close affinities with the Tamil-speaking Dravidians of Southern India, and are thus exceptional to the other aborigines of these hills who have no such connection. The Kols (37,000), who occupy the north-east of the region and stretch into Chota Nagpur; the Kurs or Korkus (44,000); Bygas (18,000); Bhils in the west

(20,000); and another 25,000 aborigines who had no cohesive language or territory of their own.

Forsyth gives some most interesting information on the forests and tree distribution at the period, a summary of which will enable a clear picture to be formed of the problems before the newly organised Forest Department.

From a botanical and zoological point of view this region is of high interest, as it forms the meeting-ground of some forms of vegetable and animal life which appear to be characteristic of north-eastern and south-western India. The chief forest tree of Upper India is the sâl (Shorea robusta), a tree addicted to occupying gregariously the tracts it flourishes in to the exclusion of other species. It forms great forests in the plains along the base of and in the lower foot-hills of the Himalaya, and also covers the greater portions of the hilly region to the south of the Gangetic valley. From the latter tract it stretches along the tableland of Chota Nagpur and thence extends into the Central Provinces in two great branches, separated by the open, cleared plain of Chattisgarh. The southern branch reaches as far as the Godaveri River, and the northern embraces the eastern half of the Satpura highlands, both branches ceasing almost exactly at the eightieth parallel of east longitude. To the west of this is the teak, which is absent from Northern India and Bengal and found but scantily in the Central Provinces to the east of eighty degrees longitude. Its method of growth, as has been already shown for Madras and Burma, is dissimilar to that of the sâl, the teak growing in scattered clumps or individuals intermixed with numerous other species.

Forsyth attempts a better explanation for the "peculiar disposition of these two timber trees " than any which had yet appeared, ascribing it to their habit of growth and relation to various soils.

"The sâl," says Forsyth, "is a tree possessed of a remarkable power of propagating itself, shedding an enormous number of seeds, at a season (the commencement of the rains) when the usual jungle fires have ceased, and which sprout almost immediately on their reaching the ground. On the other hand, the teak seeds after the rainy season, and the seeds themselves are covered by a hard shell which must be decomposed by long exposure to moisture and heat before they will germinate, This necessitates their exposure throughout

one hot season, when the whole of the grass covering the ground below is burnt in the annual conflagrations. Thus a large percentage of the seeds of the teak never germinate at all. It is clear, then, that if these two species were growing together, on soil equally suitable for both, the sâl must possess an immense advantage in the 'struggle for life' over the teak. And if to this natural advantage be added an adventitious one, in the fact that the teak is much more generally useful to man-particularly to man in a primitive state-as is really the case, there seems to be a sufficient reason why the teak should disappear before its rival in tracts where the latter has obtained a footing and is equally suitable to the soil and climate. Now an examination of the tracts on which these trees are found in Central India shows that, while the teak does not appear to shun any particular geological formation, it thrives best on the trap soils which predominate in the south and west of the Province. But the sâl, on the other hand, clearly shuns the trap formation altogether. Not only is it unknown within the great trappean area to the west of the eightieth degree of longitude, but even to the east of that line, in its own peculiar region, it does not grow where isolated areas of the trap rocks are found. Further, I believe that in no part of India where this tree grows is there any of the trap formation. With the exception only of this volcanic rock the sâl appears to thrive on any other formation, being equally abundant within its own area, where primitive rocks, or sandstones, or lateritic beds predominate. Thus I believe that the sâl, where the soil is suitable, that is where there are no trap rocks, has exterminated the teak, of which it is a natural rival. In other parts of India, where the teak does not meet with this rival, as in Malabar and Burma, it flourishes on the soils from which it is here excluded by the sâl. The general conclusion appears irresistible, but sharp contrasts perhaps best illustrate such peculiarities. Many such might be mentioned, but two in particular are very noticeable. Within the sâl region, in the hills immediately to the east of the town of Mandlá, there is a considerable area covered by teak, to the total exclusion of the sâl. The whole of this region is composed of a trap overflow; and all around it, as soon as the granitic and lateritic formations recommence, the sâl again entirely abolishes the teak. Again, within the area of the trap and teak, in the valley of the Dénwá River, 150 miles west of the furthest limit of the general sâl region, is

found a solitary isolated patch of the latter, occupying but a few square miles. Here the sâl grows on a sandstone formation. It is surrounded on three sides by trap rocks, and there it entirely ceases, and is supplanted by the teak as the principal timber tree. But how to account for this small and unimportant outlier of the great sâl belt? To maintain our theory some link to connect them together should be found. I think that a hypothesis, much less extravagant than many which are introduced into such arguments, will do so. Towards the fourth side of the sâl patch in the Dénwá valley lies the great open plain of the Narbadá into which the sandstone formation extends, and passes on along with primitive rocks, and with little interruption from the trap, right up to the main body of the sâl forest at the head of the Narbadá valley. The sâl, it is true, ceases in the open Narbadá valley, but so does all forest, the country having been completely cleared and cultivated for many generations. It is not then a very violent assumption to suppose that the sâl forest at one time extended down the Narbadá valley as far as the Dénwá, and that, when the country was cleared, this little patch alone was left securely nestled under the cliffs of the Màhádeo Range, in the secluded valley of the Dénwá, into which there was no road even until within the last few years.

These are strange facts. But it would be still more strange if a corresponding distribution of animal life could also be demonstrated. Something of the kind is really almost possible. Equally with the sâl tree several prominent members of the Central Indian fauna belong peculiarly to the northeastern parts of India. These are the wild buffalo (Bubalus Arni), the twelve-tined 'swamp' deer (Rucervus Duvaucellii), and the red jungle-fowl (Gallus ferrugineus). All these are plentiful within the area of the great sâl belt, but do not occur to the west of it, excepting in the sâl patch of the Dénwá valley, where the two latter, though not the buffalo, again recur. În the Dénwá valley there is but a solitary herd of the swamp deer, I believe; the red jungle-fowl are not so numerous as the rival species, G. Sonneratii, which replaces it in the west and south of India; and it is not surprising that the wild buffalo should have disappeared when his range had been reduced, by the clearance of the intermediate forest, to the narrow limits of this small valley. So large and prominent an animal requires a much larger range than deer and birds; and there is no part of the surrounding country suitable for

his habits until we reach the sâl tracts again, though very probably the extensive black soil plains of the Narbadá valley were so before they were cleared. In corroboration of the probability of his formerly having extended further down the valley than at present, skulls and horns have been found in the upper gravels of the Narbadá in no way differing, except in superior size, from those of the existing species. Their greater size is not surprising, as they are not larger than the horns still occasionally met with in Assam, where also the average size is stated to be now rapidly diminishing under the attacks of sportsmen."

It is of interest to remember that this remark was written some sixty years ago. What would Forsyth have thought of the position in this respect in the twentieth century?

"Two other large representatives of the eastern and western faunas, the wild elephant and the Asiatic lion, also appear to have formerly extended far into this region. In modern times, however, the advance of cultivation and the persecutions of the hunter have driven them both almost out of the country I am describing. The former, in the time of Akbar (as is ascertained from Abdúl Fuzl's chronicles), ranged as far west as Asigarh, but is now confined to the extreme east of the Province. Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador from James I to the Court of the Great Mogul, in the seventeenth century, speaks of the lion as being then common in the Narbadá valley. It is now seldom heard of further east than Rajputàna, although a solitary specimen sometimes appears in their old haunts further east. A lion was killed in the Saugar District in 1851, and another a few years ago only a few miles from the Jubbulpur and Allahabad railway. The hog-deer (Axis porcinus) I have never met with in the west of the Province, nor is it very numerous even in the east, though very common in the sâl tracts of Northern India. The black partridge (Francolinus vulgaris) of Northern India does not extend into these provinces at all, its place being taken by the painted partridge (F. pictus), a very closely allied species. The great imperial pigeon of Southern India does not, I think, cross the Narbadá to the north, though not uncommon in the higher forests to the south of that river. Scientific research among the minor forms of animal and vegetable life (for which I have had neither the time nor the knowledge) may possibly elicit

1 The lion in India is now only met with in the small tract known as Gir in Kathiawar and in the wildest parts of Rajputana. E.P.S.