MIDNAPORE  , a

town and district of British India, in the Burdwan division of Bengal . The town is 68 m . W. of Calcutta; it has a station on the Bengal Nagpur railway . Pop . (1901), 33,140 . It is an important centre of trade, being the terminus of a navigable canal to Calcutta, and also the junction for the Sini branch of the Bengal-Nagpur railway . There are manufactures of brass and copper wire . It has an American mission, a municipal college, and a public library founded in 1852 . The DISTRICT OF MIDNAPORE has an area of 5186 sq. in . The general appearance is that of a large open plain, of which the greater part is under cultivation . In the northern portion the soil is poor, and there is little wood . The country along the western boundary, known as the Jungle Mahals, is undulating and picturesque; it is almost uninhabited .

The eastern and

south-eastern portions are swampy and richly cultivated . The chief rivers of the district are the Hugli and its three tributaries, the Rupnarayan, the Haldi and the Rasulpur . Th Midnapore high-level canal used also for irrigation runs almost due east and west from the town of Midnapore to Ulubaria on the Hugli 16 m. below Calcutta, and affords a continuous navigable channel 53 M. in length . There is also a tidal canal for navigation, 26 m. in length, extending from the Rupnarayan river . The district is traversed as well by the Bengal-Nagpur railway towards Orissa, with a branch to Chota Nagpur . The jungles in the west of the district yield lac, tussur, silk, wax, resin, fire-wood, charcoal, &c., and give shelter to large and small game . The principal exports are rice, silk and sugar; and the chief imports consist of cotton cloth and twist . Salt, indigo, silk, mats and brass and copper utensils are manufactured . Both silk and indigo are decaying industries . The population in 1901 was 2,789,114, showing an increase of 6% in the decade . The early history of Midnapore centres round the ancient town of Tamluk, which in the beginning of the 5th century was an important Buddhist settlement and maritime harbour . The first connexion of the English with the district dates from 176o, when Mir Kasim ceded to the East India Company Midnapore, Chittagong, and Burdwan (then estimated to furnish one-third of the entire revenue of Bengal) as the price of his elevation to the throne of Bengal on the deposition of Mir Jafar .