An Account of the District of Purnea in 1809-10
by Francis Buchanan
ISBN - 9789360807160
Cover - HardBound
Publication Year - 2024
Pages - 700 p.
Price - INR 3200.00
The present volume contains the complete Buchanan-Hamilton’s Report on the district of Purnea with tables that seem of permanent value, though it was not published by Robert Montgomery Martin. From the data compiled by him, it is possible to compute the total population, and also the share of the population dependent on secondary industries around the years 1809-13 in the tracts designated as Bhagalpur, Patna-Gaya, Purnea, and Shahabad by Buchanan-Hamilton himself, making up what may be known as the Gangetic Bihar in modern-day India. The noticeable feature of this district is the extent of uncultivated land, which spreads out from the vicinity of the town of Purnea, chiefly to the north and west, in the form of radiating stretches of land, opening out occasionally into fine, grassy, prairie-like plains. About the Author Francis Buchanan-Hamilton entered the service of the East India Company in the Bengal Presidency in 1794. His wide-ranging interest in botanical knowledge and his aptitude for other sciences, such as zoology and geology, combined with rare strengths of methodology and accurate observation at once marked him as fit for special duties. He distinguished himself by his inquiries related to botany and geography. He also engaged in the study of the Gangetic fishes, and then, in botanical research around the Chittagong area. In 1807, the Court of Directors appointed him to oversee a detailed statistical survey plan of the then Bengal Presidency. Ananda Bhattacharyya is a retired Assistant Director, West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata, Government of West Bengal |
