actual purchasers of the timber never went into the forests themselves, and consequently never actually paid for the timber until it had been brought out of the forests. As has been shown, the Governor-General's Minute, dated the day before the Commissioner wrote the above letter on the Superintendent's second Report, definitely disposed of the Phayre's contentions. But the Commissioner's order to McClelland that this timber should be allowed to be taken out of the forest resulted in a considerable loss of public revenue before the receipt of the Governor-General's decision in the

matter.

McClelland resigned in the middle of 1855, just when he might have hoped, with the ruling of the Governor-General directly against the spirit in which the Commissioner was endeavouring to initiate his own ideas of a forest policy, to have been able to make some considerable progress. Dr. Brandis was appointed as Superintendent of Forests in Pegu in January, 1856, the Forests of Tenasserim and Martaban being placed under his charge in the following year. He commenced the great task which lay before him by working on the lines his predecessor had suggested. Possessed of considerable force of character and a sound judgment based on a thorough scientific training in Forestry-being the first fully qualified Forest Officer appointed in the Indian EmpireBrandis laid, in the face of strenuous opposition from the European and Native timber merchants, the foundations of the Forest Department in Burma; and ultimately of the Forest Service in India.

In the autumn of 1856 new Rules were drawn up and published in January, 1857, to bring the Pegu Forests under regular conservancy, and for preventing their destruction by the removal of all the mature, marketable, seed-bearing trees, while a rough working plan was framed for regulating the killing and felling of teak for extraction. Brandis obtained

a preliminary enumeration of the number of teak trees in the forests by his now famous linear valuation surveys, etc. These operations will be more fully described in the next period, which covers Brandis' work in Burma before his translation to India and the Inspector-Generalship of Forests,

CHAPTER XV

FOREST OPERATIONS IN THE PUNJAB, WESTERN HIMALAYA AND SIND, 1850-1857

W

ITH the development in the construction of public buildings, and to a less extent communications, which set in in the Punjab in the middle of the century after the annexation of the Province, a dearth of the necessary timber soon made itself felt. Deodar was the wood chiefly in use and required.

In 1851 the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, appointed Captain Longden, H.M. 10th Foot, to carefully explore and report on the forests of the whole of the Western Himalayan Range from Chamba eastwards to the north of Simla. This duty was carried out in 1852-3 with great energy and remarkable judgment. Captain Longden was a man of exceptional physique and powers of endurance, and in the performance of this work he penetrated into regions of the Himalaya, which had been previously visited by but few Europeans. His Report, though brief in its contents, was a highly useful document, affording data on the forests of the regions which proved extremely valuable.

As an outcome of his investigations, after inspecting the forests of the territories bordering on the Sutlej, Beas, Ravi and Chenab Rivers, he recommended the establishment of an Agency on the Chenab, and the depôt formed near Sealkote was destined to supply the principal Public Works of the Punjab with the timber they required during the next twelve years. Longden also prepared some good Forest Charts of Mandi, Sukhet and Kulu.

Previous to Longden's deputation on this work, Mr. E. Prinsep, C.S., at the time Assistant Commissioner of Sealkote, visited the Padar and Kishtawar districts to inspect the deodar forests in the Maharaja Golab Singh's territories (Kashmir), and effect arrangements for the supply of materials

required for building the Sealkote Cantonment. He ascended the valley of the Chenab from Akmur to near the Chamba boundary, and part of the valley of the Butna, a large tributary. It is recorded by Colonel Harley Maxwell, then Executive Engineer, "that his labours were attended with the greatest success." Deodar wood was supplied from Padar and Kishtawar, and the Maharaja Golab Singh consented to forgo duties on timber passing through his jurisdiction, but felled within British territory.

Longden first visited the valley of the Beas River.1 He reported some few patches of deodar existing on the hills, but the tree was far from abundant. In the previous year (1851) Mr. Barnes, the Deputy Commissioner, had given it as his opinion that deodar to the value of more than Rs.5000 per annum could not be supplied from Kulu. In the Manoli Forest, extending in a strip on the right bank of the river, Longden estimated the number of trees above 3 feet in girth at 4000; the finest clump being on the right bank round the temple (Horma), containing 1500 trees, 8 to 10 feet in girth. In 1848 Mr. T. Arratoon, a contractor, had felled some fine trees in this forest; and subsequently four native timber merchants felled a considerable number in the Burwa Plain.

Cunningham, in Jour. As. Soc., Bengal, mentions that at Burwa there was "a forest of noble cedars," the girth of many being fully 8 feet.

On the Parbati, a tributary of the Beas, Longden found some patches of deodar in the valley, chiefly at Jerri and Uchich. These were adjacent to the stream, and had been partly felled. The forest, though limited in extent, appeared to him suitable for conservancy, and resembled generally the Manoli Forest. Felling was shortly afterwards undertaken here, and official correspondence relates that 350 deodar logs were cut by a native contractor near Jerri and made over to a Government official there; one of these logs was 23 feet in length, thus indicating what the forest was capable of producing at this time and also the capacity of the stream for floating purposes. Longden then inspected the Sainj Valley above Larji, but found little deodar in it. The Ul, a large tributary of the Beas, separates near its source Chota and Bara Banghal; a small forest of deodar was found in Chota Banghal, near the village of Tramar (Tramahar), the

1 The valleys of the five Punjab rivers and their tributaries are described in greater detail in Chapter XXII.