Peleg_ has a profounder meaning, and the
sentence should have been translated--"_for in his days the earth was
cut into canals" (Cambridge Essay_,1858.)

But historical testimony exists which removes all obscurity from the
inquiry as to who were the instructors of the Singhalese. The most
ancient books of the Hindus show that the practice of canal-making was
understood in India at as early a period as in Egypt. Canals are
mentioned in the _Rayamana_, the story of which belongs to the dimmest
antiquity; and when Baratha, the half-brother of Rama, was about to
search for him in the Dekkan, his train is described as including
"labourers, with carts, bridge-builders, carpenters, and diggers of
canals." (_Ramayana_, CARY'S Trans., vol. iii. p. 228.) The _Mahawanso,_
removes all doubt as to the person by whom the Singhalese were
instructed in forming works for irrigation, by naming the Brahman
engineer contemporary with the construction of the earliest tanks in the
fourth century before the Christian era. (_Mahawanso_, ch. x.) Somewhat
later, B.C. 262, the inscription on the rock at Mihintala ascribes to
the Malabars the system of managing the water for the rice lands, and
directs that "according to the supply of water in the lake, the same
shall be distributed to the lands of the wihara _in the manner formerly
regulated by the Tamils._" (_Notes to_ TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 90.) To
be convinced of the Tamil origin of the tank system which subsists to
the present day in Ceylon, it is only necessary to see the tanks of the
Southern Dekkan. The innumerable excavated reservoirs or _colams_ of
Ceylon will be found to correspond with the _culams_ of Mysore; and the
vast _erays_ formed by drawing a bund to intercept the water flowing
between two elevated ridges, exhibit the model which has been followed
at Pathavie, Kandelai, Menery, and all the huge constructions of Ceylon,
But whoever may have been the original instructors of the Singhalese in
the formation of tanks, there seems every reason to believe that from
their own subsequent experience, and the prodigious extent to which they
occupied themselves in the formation of works of this kind, they
attained a facility unsurpassed by the people of any other country. It
is a curious circumstance in connection with this inquiry, that in the
eighth century after Christ, the King of Kashmir despatched messengers
to Ceylon to bring back workmen, whom he employed in constructing an
artific