Kashmir, Sir Younghusband Francis Edward [the best novels to read .TXT] 📗

new canal which is being constructed at the point where the Jhelum River emerges from its mountain barriers and enters the plain; and from that point it would be led over some hundreds of miles to irrigate rich, but as yet uncultivated lands, only needing the touch of life-giving water to burst forth into luxuriant vegetation and attract great populations to them.

The latent capacity for good of these waters of the Jhelum, now tossing heedlessly about as they rush along beside the road into Kashmir, is then for practical purposes almost unlimited. Even the present installation only takes out a small proportion, and that portion is utilised only once. In the driest season the Jhelum River runs with a volume of about 5000 cubic feet per second—what are known for short as "cusecs." But of this amount only 500 cusecs are taken, and these 500 cusecs are utilised only once, and not several times, as they might well be in their fall between the valley of Kashmir and the plains of India.

With these 500 cusecs electrical energy to the extent of 20,000 horse-power will be generated; but Major de Lotbinière thinks that it would be possible to economically develop an aggregate of at least 250,000 horse-power of electrical energy from the Jhelum River. It is not possible to take out water and conduct it along the mountain-side at any point. It is indeed a matter of some difficulty to choose a site where safe headworks can be constructed to entrap the water of the river, where the water can be taken along the hill-side, and where a forebay or tank can be built from which to lead off the pipes to the generating station below. In many parts the river runs between precipitous banks so that it is impossible to get it out. In others, even when it had been got out, the hill-sides would be found so loose and unsafe it would be impracticable to take a water-course along them. Still, in spite of the many difficulties in the way of making practical use of the water-power in the Jhelum River, Major de Lotbinière still thinks that, as above mentioned, electrical energy to the extent of a quarter of a million horse-power could be economically developed.

Water for the present project has been taken out a couple of miles above Rampur at a most charming spot, where the river comes foaming down over innumerable boulders, and the banks are overshadowed by the same graceful deodar trees which clothe the mountain-sides. Here very strong and solid masonry headworks and regulating sluices have been built under the lee of some friendly boulders; and elaborate precautions have been taken to protect these headworks from the impact of the thousands of logs which are annually floated down the river by the Forest Department to be caught and sold in the plains below.

From these headworks what is called a flume has been constructed in which the water will run along the mountain-side to the forebay or tank immediately above the generating station. This flume, answering to the channel which conducts the water to a flour-mill, is to the eye absolutely level, but it has in reality the very small drop of 1·05 feet in 1000 feet—just sufficient to make the water run easily along it. Its length is about 6½ miles; and the main difficulty in the whole project was found in constructing it. A road or even a railway when it comes to an obstacle can very likely, by a change in the gradient, rise over it or under it. But this flume had to go straight at any obstacle in its way, for it obviously could not rise, and if it were lowered it could not rise again, and so much horse-power would have been lost at the far end. The flume, in fact, once it was started off had to take things as it found them and make the best of them. The first obstacle was a great spur of boulder conglomerate. This had to be cut down into to a depth of forty feet. An arched masonry passage had then to be made, and the whole covered over again. Five torrents were negotiated by passing them clean over the flume. Over six other torrents the flume—here made of wood—had to be carried on strong iron bridges. And six tunnels were made through projecting rocky spurs. Only one-third of the 6½ miles' length of flume could be built of masonry, and the remainder had necessarily to be built of timber. This portion had an internal section of 8-1/3 feet by 8½ feet, and was constructed of tongued and grooved, machine-planed, deodar planking 2¾ inches thick, supported on cross frames 3½ feet apart.

The chief danger to guard against in constructing this flume for carrying the water to the generating station was the risk of the hill-sides either bodily slipping downward, as they are very apt to do in heavy rain, or falling in heavy masses on to the wooden flume and breaking through it, and thus completely breaking off the source of power, and bringing all machinery to a standstill. These risks cannot be entirely counteracted. In heavy rain a portion of the wooden flume may be carried away or broken. An alternative supply of water on occasions of exceptional rain has therefore been tapped close up to the generating station, where a strong dam has been thrown across the bed of a mountain torrent, and its waters impounded to lead through a tunnel in a rocky spur almost immediately on to the forebay. In ordinary weather there is little water in this torrent, but in heavy rain, when the flume is most likely to be damaged, it has ample water.

And although there is this alternative supply, great precautions have, nevertheless, been taken to ensure the flume against damage, and where slips are to be expected immensely solid timber shoots have been erected over it for rocks or snow and mud floods to shoot over.

On emerging from the flume the water enters the brick-lined tank or reservoir called the forebay, where it settles for a moment before descending the great iron pipe which conducts it on to the machinery in the power-house below. In this forebay there are, of course, sluice gates to regulate the flow, and shut it off altogether at one or all the pipes. And there is also a spill channel for the water to flow away to waste when it is not wanted.

Then four hundred feet below we come to the power-house, with all the most modern electrical plant transported from America, and much of it from the farthest western coast of America, across the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, right across India, and then for 150 miles by road over a range 6000 feet high. The water-power made available by the flume is capable of generating 20,000 horse-power; but as that amount of power is not at present required, electrical machinery to develop not more than 5000 h.-p. has as yet been put in, though space and all arrangements have been provided in the power-house for machinery to develop 15,000 h.-p. more whenever that is required. The machinery is by the General Electric Co. of New York, and the generators supplied are of the three-phase 25-cycle type. The water-wheels upon which the water from the forebay, led down the pipes and contracted through a nozzle, impinges with such tremendous velocity that a hatchet could not cut the spout, are made of specially toughened steel, and are so cunningly designed that the utmost effect is obtained from the fall of the water, and that immediately the water has done its work it is allowed to pass away at once through a waste channel back again into the river without further impeding the machinery. These wheels were supplied by Abner Doble of San Francisco. They are sent revolving with immense rapidity—five hundred revolutions per minute, or eight every second—and they cause to revolve the electrical generators which are placed on the same axis, and thereby electric energy is generated. By a series of very ingenious machines this electric energy is regulated and conducted to the transmission wires which are at present carried through Baramula to Srinagar, and which will transmit the power at the extremely high voltage of 60,000 volts from the generating station to the spot where the power is required.

The carrying out of such an undertaking in a remote mountainous country, where no railway has yet penetrated and where no great industrial enterprises have yet been established, required no small amount of organising capacity, driving power, and foresight. In the spring the melting snow combined with rain, and in the summer the heavy rain brings down the mountain-sides, impedes construction progress, often filling up what has already been done, and sometimes, alas! burying workmen with it. In winter, snow and frost stopped all work. Labour difficulties were another source of trouble. Enough was not available on the spot, and many hundreds were engaged from distant Baltistan and Ladak, and even Afghanistan. Skilled labour had to be imported from the Punjab. With contractors other difficulties arose. They would not work without an advance of money, and when they got an advance many would decamp. Again cholera created still other difficulties, and drove labour away when it had with much persuasion been collected.

All these are no mean difficulties. They have, however, now been overcome, and this autumn the Maharaja, in the presence of many guests, opened the installation and transmitted the power to Baramula and Srinagar.

The 5000 horse-power at present available will be utilised for carrying out Mr. Field's and Major de Lotbinière's great scheme for dredging the bed of the Jhelum River and neighbouring marshes, and thus preventing floods, and for reclaiming some 60,000 acres of cultivable land. It will also be used for heating the water basins in the silk factory and turning the reeling machinery, as well as for lighting Srinagar.

When the railway which has so long been contemplated is at last constructed, more electric power will be needed. And if the Durbar in any way encourage outside enterprise, there will be demand for electric power for oil-crushing, for saw-mills, for wool factories, match factories, and many other purposes. In any European country or American State the whole amount of electric power would have been already sold. Similar rapidity of progress cannot be expected in Kashmir. But still we may hope that now every one can see that the electric power is there, and that it is an eminently useful product, the demand will gradually arise, and the financial success of the project be worthy of the skill and enterprise displayed by the engineers.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PEAKS AND MOUNTAIN RANGES

Not, indeed, from the valley itself, but from the mountains which bound it, can be seen the second highest mountain in the world, and a number of peaks of 25,000 feet and over. Kashmir is cradled amidst the very loftiest mountains, and only Nepal can claim still higher peaks.

By a fortunate coincidence the Government of India have this year published a remarkably interesting scientific treatise on the high peaks and principal mountain ranges of Asia, by Colonel Burrard, R.E., F.R.S., the officiating Surveyor-General of India, and H. H. Hayden, Superintendent in the Geological Survey of India. Both these officers have unique qualifications for the task. Colonel Burrard has for years made a special study of the Himalayas, and Mr. Hayden has for a great part of his service been engaged in investigating the geology of various districts of the Himalayas, and he accompanied me to Tibet.

The highest peak in the world is Mount Everest, which is taken to be 29,002 feet above sea-level, and is situated