Heidi Price, age 15, of Marquette, Mich., for her question:
HOW LONG IS THE GANGES RIVER?
India's largest and most important river is the Ganges. Starting in the high Himalayas, the river flows 1,557 miles in a southeasterly direction through India and Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal.
The Ganges River is the most sacred in all India to the Hindus. They make long pilgrimages so they may bathe in its waters.
The Jumna River joins the Ganges at Allahabad and the Hindus regard the spot where the two rivers meet as especially sacred. This is the location where thousands of persons gather each year to bathe.
About 100 miles from Allahabad is Benares, the holy city. There are many temples here, along the river. Ghats, or steps leading down to the river, line the steep banks at Benares.
Millions of Hindus crowd the ghats on holy days. Unfortunately, cholera and plague are often spread among the gathering pilgrims.
When the Ganges is still about 200 miles from the sea it divides into many branches that cross a very wide delta. The combined Ganges and Brahmaputra delta is the largest in the world.
In the northern part of the delta there are fertile, well watered lands. The southern end is known as the Sundarbans and here are located many mangrove swamps and wet, tropical forests. This section is where you'll find tigers, leopards, wild hogs and snakes. Also, the waters are crowded with crocodiles.
The most westerly branch of the Ganges delta is the Hooghly River. It is here, about 80 miles from the sea, where the city of Calcutta stands.
River steamers visit all of the larger cities along the Ganges, which is navigable for more than 1,000 miles.
On the upper part of the Ganges plain the river water is used very extensively for crop irrigation. There are more than 11,000 miles of both large and small irrigation canals.
In the upper part of the Ganges Valley, farmers raise cotton, wheat and irrigated rice. Rice is also grown in the lower part of the valley along with sugar cane and jute.
Headwaters of the Ganges is in an ice cave at the 10,300 foot level of the Himalaya Mountains of northern India. And as the river moves toward the sea, its banks hold some of India's largest cities including Calcutta, Howrah, Patna, Banaras and Kanpur. India's capital, New Delhi, stands on the banks of the Jumna, one of the Ganges' tributaries.
The Ganges basin is one of the most fertile areas of the world and it is also one of the most densely populated. It covers an area of almost 400,000 square miles.
Each year parts of the delta in some of the Ganges' marshes change from old channels to new ones. This is particularly true in the alluvial basin of its lower reaches.