Ghazipur Geographical Background
The district of Ghazipur
is serounded by the district of Vranasi,Jaunpur,Azamgarh and Baliya.
The northern portion forms a belt some 25 miles wide along
the Ganges ,between theGomti and the Ghagra and terminates in the triangular
delta between the Ghaghra and the Ganges.
It is divided into unequal parts,of which the western is the
larger,by the Surjoo,a perennial tributary of the Ganges,which has its origin
from the junction of the Tonse river with a branch of the Ghagra ,in the
Azamgarh District.
The southern portion of the district is a tract of country
of irregular shape,lying between the Ganges and the Karamnasa rivers,above
their confluence.
No hill or natural eminence is to be found in the
district,but there is,both north and south of the Ganges ,an upland and the
lowland tract of country, and the rise from the lower to the higher plain is
everywhere perceptible ,and in some places so marked as to present somewhat the
appearance of a low range of hills.This rise is sometimes met with at a
distance of several miles from any river, but ,on investigation,it will be
found invariably to have been at one time the bank of a river,in the former
channel of which the lowland has been formed by fluvial deposits.
Geo;ogical Survey Of India believe that the upland of this
portion of the Ganges valley forms a part of an old delta of the river,formed
under very different conditions from those at present existing , and the period
of which coincided partlywith pleiocence of European geologists ( Dr.
Oldham,superintendent of the Geological Survey).
The general level of upland tract gradually falls from a
height of about 250 feet above the mean sea level at the west,to a height of
about 200 feet above the sea on the east
of the district.This general upland level is from ten to twenty feet above the
highest,and fifty to seventy feet above the lowest level of the Ganges;in some
few places it attains a greater elevation.
Black Soil :
The black soil of this district ,called Kurrele,resembling
the marh or black soil of Bundelkhand,requires some notice.This soil is common
in all the lowland formations,and is also found in the upland tracts south of
the Ganges and near the Karamnasa .The black soil,which contains much
Alumina,can with difficulty be traversed during the rains;and when it dries
up,it spits into innumerable cracks and fissures.The black soil produces a good
spring crop without irrigation,and even without cold season rain,when it has
been submerged in rainy season,either from the rise in the Ganges or from the
accumunulation of rain-water,as occurs most years.The character of the soil is
improved if sand is spread over it,and irrigation then becomes practicable.Sand
can,in lowland formations ,always be procured by digging down a few feet .