The Rupee, as you know, is nominally 2s., but really varies according to the rate of exchange between 1s. 9d. and 1s. 11d. It is divided into 16 annas—a copper coin worth about 1½d., which is again divided into 12 pies, 4 of which make a pice. The 2-anna, 4-anna, and 8-anna bits correspond to our 3d., 6d., and 1s. There is no standard gold coinage yet in India, though sovereigns will always pass current, and 5 and 10 rupee coins have lately been issued. There are now Government notes from 10 to 1000 rupees, which pass in all the great towns, but will not be taken in smaller places without a discount.
As to Measures and Weights, in Upper and Western India we employ the lineal, square, or cubic foot as the unit for our estimates and calculations; in Madras, they use the cubic yard. Our lineal units are generally understood, except, perhaps, the mile; natives generally give distances in kosses, which vary from 1 to 2½ miles. The acre is employed in Government papers, but is not known to the people, who measure land by the beegah, which varies greatly in different districts. The weights commonly used are the maund, seer, and chittack, which are practically held to be 80 lbs. avoirdupois, 2 lbs., and 2 oz. respectively.
There is as great variety in India as in other countries in all local weights and measures, and the people are as obstinate and suspicious there as in England, and elsewhere, about any changes being made,—a fact too often forgotten by the decimal and metrical doctrinaires in their zeal to ensure a theoretically perfect system of standards.
Let me now say something of the mode of executing work generally, before going on to the subject of special engineering constructions. The first thing that strikes the engineer from England is the primitive simplicity of the working appliances, and the total absence of the elaborate and costly plant judged necessary for executing great works in Europe. Steam engines, steam cranes, steam pumps, steam pile-drivers, tramways, even such things as hand-pumps, horses, carts, and wheelbarrows are rarely used. This has arisen from the comparative cheapness of manual labour, from the difficulty of procuring skilled subordinates, and from the dearness of fuel. Now that the first two causes are greatly modified, and the extensive works lately undertaken have necessitated recourse to European appliances, the engineer going out to India should devote special attention to this subject, for he will often have to teach his subordinates the use of such things as I have mentioned. Great works have, however, been constructed in India without them, and will still be so for some time to come. Earthwork, for instance, is constructed almost entirely with wicker baskets as the sole means of carriage; yet few countries have had so many massive embankments thrown up. Petty contracts are readily taken for this kind of work, in which case the whole family of the workman, down to the child of three years old, will help to swell the mass to be raised. A system of payment at the rate of a cowrie paid on the spot for every basket of earth carried is very popular, several hundred cowries going to a rupee. For such banks, the earth is almost always taken from side cuttings to save the expense of a long lead, as the land is comparatively of little value. The earth is dug with a phowrah, the common native tool, which is at once a spade and a hoe, and an excellent tool it is.
For getting water out of foundations, and for lifting water generally either for irrigation or otherwise, several ingenious contrivances are employed. For a lift not exceeding three or four feet, and where the hole or excavation is not too small, a swing-basket covered with leaves or matting is used as a bale, being swung by two men. I have often seen water lifted in this way from 12 to 16 feet, in three or four stages, by as many pairs of men, the baskets being swung together in exact time, and the quantity lifted one stage being about 1800 gallons per hour.
For higher lifts, there are three machines commonly employed—the paecottah, or lever bucket, used in Bengal (the counterpoise on the shorter arm of the lever being a heavy stone or a lump of clay); the churus, or chursah, common in the North-Western Provinces, a large leathern bag drawn up by bullocks; and the Persian wheel, or endless chain of buckets, also worked by bullocks, and everywhere employed in the Punjab, which has been in use in the East for at least 2000 years, and is one of the most effective and ingenious water-raising engines yet invented.
The native carts or hackeries are drawn by bullocks or buffaloes, and are exceedingly primitive vehicles. They have no springs—often no iron tires to the wheels—and, except the axle-pins, have generally no iron at all in them. But the advantage is that they can go over any rutted track that does duty for a road, and that if they do get broken, the nearest carpenter can repair them. That, of course, is the real difficulty in introducing English improvements into India, that if your fine carts or pumps get broken, who is to repair them?[A]
I now come to a very interesting subject to the Indian engineer, which involves several specialities, and applies more or less to all the constructions we shall consider afterwards in detail—I mean the subject of [Foundations]. Of course the general principles of constructing foundations are the same everywhere, that is, you must secure, if possible, a firm and unyielding substratum. If you cannot find this naturally supplied, you must use artificial contrivances, either by proper distribution of your weight to be supported, or by preventing any lateral spreading, or undermining from the action of water. For this purpose in England we have recourse to piling, or concrete, or iron cylinders and screw-piles. How is it in India? Well, there, as a rule, piles won’t do; first, because timber is scarce and dear; second, and chiefly, because it is exposed to so many causes of decay that it would quickly rot. Iron cylinders and screw-piles have been a good deal used lately; but generally in India, both these and the timber piles are superseded by the employment of Cylinders of Brick masonry, varying in diameter inside from 3 to 12 feet, and sunk either to a firm stratum below, or to such a depth as to be safe from scour,—the weight being borne in this case by the friction against the sides. A sufficient number of wells are designed to carry the superincumbent weight, whether it be a house or the pier of a bridge, and the whole series being sunk to the required level, and as close together as possible, the tops of the wells are arched over, the arches are all connected together by slabs of stone or other arches, and on this artificial platform the superstructure is raised.
To sink a well, the néemchuk, or well-curb, a ring of wood from 9 to 18 inches thick, is laid on the ground, the masonry built upon it about 4 feet high, and left to dry. The sand inside is then scooped out, and the well descends gradually, when another 4 feet are built up; the sand is again scooped out; and so on, until the required depth is reached. So long as there is no water met with, and the soil is sand, the work is easy enough, the only care being to see that the excavation proceeds regularly and evenly; but when the water is reached, and as it deepens, the process is a slow one. A huge sort of hoe (called a jham) is used, which is worked from above into the soil, and then hoisted up with its load; a Persian wheel or a churrus being also used to keep the water down as much as possible. Sometimes blocks of wood or kunkur are met with which impede the descent of the well, and then a diver must be employed,—a man who descends without any diving apparatus, and can stay under water an alarming length of time.
Since the construction of so many great railway bridges, in which these cylinders have been sunk to a depth of 50 feet, various improvements have been introduced. The wooden curb has been replaced by one of wrought iron, with a sharp-cutting edge, into which are bolted below several rods of inch iron running through the masonry, and connected at intervals by flat iron rings, so that the whole cylinder is well bound together. A Sand Pump has also been invented, worked by a steam-hoist, to take the place of the old native jham. This, and another machine for the same purpose, called Fouracre’s Well Excavator, you will find described in the ‘Professional Papers’ and the Roorkee ‘Treatise.’