Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/278

266 izROM olzFIOI?L so URCE$ from the dam down the river channel for 220 miles and is then diverted into the main canal at the Berembed Weir. After about 40 miles the main canal reaches the irrigated area and begins to 'divide into minor canals and distributaries which will supply water to nearly ?00,000 acres. This national enter- ' almost ideal conditions of settlement: provides land prize excellent at assured water supply, a and credit facilities with reasonable rates, a cheap and leasehold tenure, terms of repayment o! instruction of perpetual easy loans; also State encouragement and the most liberal and practical character. 'he Murrumbidgee River is one of flowing into the right bank of tributaries the great the Murray River, which divides Victoria from New South Wales. r18e8 on The Murrumbidgee coastal mountain range and westwards,. that is inland, Wales, for plains. In and many features climatic features to the western side of the leaving the hills flows the Punjab, ?he natural Australia. Rivers, and if we imagined these and not the peren- nial snowfed rivers, flowing across the arid plains of we should have a fairly close parallel to conditions of the great plains of eastern The map inserted opposite this page shows clearly the Murrnmbidgee River and the precise loca- tion of the dam and the irrigated colony. The inception of the scheme dates back to the Repor? of the Royal Commission on water conservation which concluded its labors in 1887, and suggested amongst other proposals the Mnrrumbidgee River to irrigate lower valley. The preliminary investigations of many years, and the work canalisation of the arid lands of its of surveys and va%ious alternative schemes occupied the coneta'action of the canal on the entirely w. ithin New South hundreds of miles across the dry alluvial it is similar in physical the Chambal and Sone