‘Persia – especially Seistan’ [‎126v] (251/949)

8
The dasht to the north of the Tarakun branch of the Helmand was not
examined at all. It appears to be at a much higher elevation than the
south bank.
The level books are with me, as I have some railway sections in them.
1 won’t bother you with calculating imaginary areas, but if only one-third
of the dasht and the Shelag “ pat ” (a strip of alluvial soil 7 miles wide from
the scarp of the dasht to the commencement of the sandhills) can be culti
vated, we have an area about the same as cultivated Seistan.
This note is accompanied by two sections marked Plans No. YII and
No. VIII. The position of these sections is marked on the plan, Appendix C.
Appendix E.
Note by T. R, J. Ward, Esq., Executive Engineer, Irrigation Officer, Seistan Arbitration Com-
mission, on the feasibility of controlling the waters of the llelmand River and
constructing canals to irrigate the delta, dated 24 th May 1903 .
At the present day the large volume of water in the Helmand River com
mands only a comparatively small area of country in Seistan, a large part of
which is submerged by the surplus waters of the river, w r hilst the area cuPi-
vated on the higher lands is liable to serious damage by floods. The object
of this note is to show that it is possible to reclaim some of the submerged
areas by carrying the water in canals to irrigate plains at present unwatei ed,
and at the same time to construct an escape channel w T hich would carry off the
surplus waters not required for irrigation to the Gaud-i-Zirreh depression, a
remote and deep portion of the deltaic valley into which the waters of the
Helmand tail.
It will be useful to first give some information of the size and nature of
the river to be dealt with, and the areas of the land that could be brought under
its command, before discussing the schemes to control and utilise the water.
2. The Helmand River above Kala-i-Bist (240 miles above Band-i-Seistan)
* The catchment area of the Chenab River is drains an area of about 56,500* square
11 , 400 , and of the Jhelum River 1 4 , 3 U 0 square miles. mifes of Afghanistan lying to the SOUth-
west of the Kabul River watershed The boundary between adjacent drainage basins. and between the Suleiman range on the
east and the Koh-i-Baba range on the north and west. Below Kala-i-Bist,
the river flows in a narrow valley or gorge cut through bare gravel strewn
deserts. Above Khwaja Ali the valley lies some 200 or 300 feet below the
general level of the desert plains bordering the gorge. The bluffs sometimes
rise to that height directly over the valley, but usually the height is attained by
a series of terraces or old river margins. Below Khwaja Ali, the heights of the
bluffs gradually decrease till at Band-i-Kamal Khan, they are seldom more than
50 feet high near the river and about 100 feet high a short distance back from
the river. The river twists and turns in the narrow limits of the valley, leaving
an agriculturally rich finely divided clay loam soil on either bank, usually on
one side or the other, and seldom on both banks at the same place. The general
average width of the valley from the Koh-i-Khan Nashin, the highest point of
the valley seen by the members of the Mission, to Band-i-Kamal Khan, where
the river gorge may be considered to end, is about two miles. The gross area
of this valley is very small: from Bhagat above Koh-i-Khrn Nashin down to
Band-i-Kamal Khan, a distance of 128 miles, the area is not more than 150 000
acres. This length of the valley is irrigated by a system of canals, carrying an
ordinary supply of about 200 cusees, and irrigating about 15,000 acres of wheat
and barley, which might be increased to about 60,000 acres, if the present
canals were extended and enlarged.
3. At the Band i-Seistan, the river reaches a low-lying rich alluvial plain,
through which it flows by a network of channels, both natural and artificial 9
until the waters not utilised in irrigating land, accumulate in the low-lving
lands, known as “ Hamun ”, at the extreme north of the plain forming a
shallow lake. As this lake fills, the winters extend to the south round the toe
of the deltaic fan and, in years of very high river, eventually reach the Gaud-
I-Zirreh depression by the Shelag River. That the waters submerge low-lying