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Sir Proby Thomas Cautley KCB (3 January 1802 – 25 January 1871), English engineer and palaeontologist, born in Suffolk, is best known for conceiving and supervising the construction of the Ganges canal during East India Company rule in India. The canal stretches some 350 miles between its headworks at Haridwar and, after bifurcation near Aligarh, its confluences with the Ganges river mainstem in Kanpur and the Yamuna river in Etawah. At the time of completion, it had the greatest discharge of any irrigation canal in the world. Proby Cautley was educated at Charterhouse School (1813–18), followed by the East India Company's Military Seminary at Addiscombe (1818–19). After less than a year there, he was commissioned second lieutenant and dispatched to India, joining the Bengal Presidency artillery in Calcutta. In 1825, he assisted Captain Robert Smith, the engineer in charge of constructing the Eastern Yamuna canal, also called the Doab canal. He was in charge of this canal for 12 years between 1831 and 1843. By 1836, he was Superintendent-General of Canals. ==Ganges canal== (詳細はGanges canal, for the irrigation of the country between the rivers Ganges, Hindan and Yamuna- then called the Jumna, which was his most important work. Cautley began working towards his dream of building a Ganges canal, and spent six months walking and riding through the area taking each measurement himself. He was confident that a 500-kilometre canal was feasible. There were many obstacles and objections to his project, mostly financial, but Cautley persevered and eventually persuaded the British East India Company to back him. This project was sanctioned in 1841, but the work was not begun till 1843, and even then Cautley found himself hampered in its execution by the opposition of Lord Ellenborough. Digging of the canal began in April 1842.〔(Upper Ganges Canal ) The Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 12, p. 138.〕 Cautley had to make his own bricks, brick kiln and mortar. Initially, he was opposed by the Hindu priests at Haridwar, who felt that the waters of the holy river Ganges would be imprisoned but Cautley pacified them by agreeing to leave a gap in the dam from where the water could flow unchecked. He further appeased the priests by undertaking the repair of bathing ghats along the river. He also inaugurated the dam by the worship of Lord Ganesh, the god of good beginnings. The dam was faced with many complications – among them was the problem of the mountainous streams that threatened the canal. Near Roorkee, the land fell away sharply and Cautley had to build an aqueduct to carry the canal for half a kilometre. As a result, at Roorkee the canal is 25 metres higher than the original river. From 1845 to 1848 he was absent in England owing to ill-health, and on his return to India he was appointed director of canals in the North-Western Provinces. When the canal formally opened on 8 April 1854, its main channel was long, its branches long and the various tributaries over long. Over in 5,000 villages were irrigated. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the Roorkee college, the erstwhile Thomason College of Civil Engineering and now IIT Roorkee. One of the twelve student hostels of IIT Roorkee is named after him.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.iitr.ac.in/campus_life/pages/Hostels+Cautley_Bhawan.html )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Proby Cautley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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