ABSTRACT
The biggest change that occurred in the new Indian Empire in the 19th Century was clearly the rapid transformation of communications: on which nearly all other major changes in the geography and economy hinged. Beside the economic impact, the railways had a particular physical impact. In the riverine lowlands of India, for mile after mile the railways had to be raised on embankments above the maximum known flood levels. By the 18th Century the British demand for tropical hardwoods for shipping and wharfage had started extraction from the forests, but this was little compared with the voracious wood demands of the railways. The empire the British created surpassed the Mughal empire in size. It included the furthest south, which the Mughals had never dominated, and similarly included Assam and Burma temporarily. English was not adopted in India as the language of higher education without debate.
