ABSTRACT
The natural process of flood and spill has conferred on the area a condition of health, probably unequalled in the remaining tracts of the Sundarbans. The Reserved Forest constitutes a vast area for tidal spill, which enables the rivers of the area to pursue their natural career of development, untramelled by the existence of embankments which restrain their spill. In Bakarganj, a fiscal system of such complexity, as is unknown in other parts of the Presidency of Bengal, has been reduced from chaos to order. The problems of the 24-Parganas Sundarbans are probably more complex than those of Khulna or Bakarganj. There is little doubt that up to the year 1904 reclamation proceeded at too rapid a pace; consideration of the problems of irrigation was unthought of, despite the fact that the security of the channel to the port of Calcutta depended largely on the treatment of the Sundarbans tract.
