Water for the present project has been taken out a couple of miles above Rampur at a most charming spot, where the river comes foaming down over innumerable boulders, and the banks are overshadowed by the same graceful deodar trees which clothe the mountain-sides. Here very strong and solid masonry headworks and regulating sluices have been built under the lee of some friendly boulders; and elaborate precautions have been taken to protect these headworks from the impact of the thousands of logs which are annually floated down the river by the Forest Department to be caught and sold in the plains below.
From these headworks what is called a flume has been constructed in which the water will run along the mountain-side to the forebay or tank immediately above the generating station. This flume, answering to the channel which conducts the water to a flour-mill, is to the eye absolutely level, but it has in reality the very small drop of 1·05 feet in 1000 feet--just sufficient to make the water run easily along it. Its length is about 6½ miles; and the main difficulty in the whole project was found in constructing it. A road or even a railway when it comes to an obstacle can very likely, by a change in the gradient, rise over it or under it. But this flume had to go straight at any obstacle in its way, for it obviously could not rise, and if it were lowered it could not rise again, and so much horse-power would have been lost at the far end. The flume, in fact, once it was started off had to take things as it found them and make the best of them. The first obstacle was a great spur of boulder conglomerate. This had to be cut down into to a depth of forty feet. An arched masonry passage had then to be made, and the whole covered over again. Five torrents were negotiated by passing them clean over the flume. Over six other torrents the flume--here made of wood--had to be carried on strong iron bridges. And six tunnels were made through projecting rocky spurs. Only one-third of the 6½ miles' length of flume could be built of masonry, and the remainder had necessarily to be built of timber. This portion had an internal section of 8-1/3 feet by 8½ feet, and was constructed of tongued and grooved, machine-planed, deodar planking 2¾ inches thick, supported on cross frames 3½ feet apart.