The Mahanadi has an estimated drainage area of 43,800 sq. m., and its rapid flow renders its maximum discharge in time of flood second to that of no other river in India. During unusually high floods 1,500,000 cub. ft. of water pour every second through the Naraj gorge, one-half of which, uncontrolled by the elaborate embankments, and heavily laden with silt, pours over the delta, filling the swamps, inundating the rice-fields, and converting the plains into a sea. In the dry weather the discharge of the Mahanadi dwindles to 1125 cub. ft. per second. Efforts have been made to husband and utilize the vast water supply thrown upon the Orissa delta during seasons of flood. Each of the three branches into which the parent stream splits at the delta head is regulated by a weir. Of the four canals which form the Orissa irrigation system, two take off from the Biropa weir, and one, with its branch, from the Mahanadi weir. On the 31st of December 1868 the government took over the whole canal works from the East Indian Irrigation Company, at a cost of £941,368. The canals thus taken over and since completed, are the high-level canal, the Kendrapara canal, the Taldanda canal and the Machgaon canal, irrigating 275,000 acres. MAHANOY CITY, a borough of Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 56 m. N.E. of Harrisburg. Pop. (1890), 11,286; (1900), 13,504, of whom 3877 were foreign-born, mostly Slavs; (1910 census) 15,936. It is served by branches of the Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia & Reading railways. The borough is situated in the valley of Mahanoy Creek, and has an elevation of 1240 ft. above the sea; Broad Mountain (1795 ft.), a ridge extending through Schuylkill county, overlooks it on the S.E. The valley is a part of the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, fire clay abounds in the vicinity, and the borough's principal industries are the mining and shipping of coal, and the manufacture of shirts and foundry products. Mahanoy City, originally a part of Mahanoy township (pop. in 1910, 6256), was incorporated as a borough in 1863. MAHAR, the name of a servile caste in the Deccan, India. Their special function, apart from that of scavenger, is to act as village watchman, as guardian of the village boundaries, and as public messenger. In some parts they are also weavers of coarse cotton cloth. In 1901 their total number in all India was just under three millions. MAHARAJPUR, a village in Gwalior state, Central India. Pop. (1901), 366. It was the scene of a battle (Dec. 29, 1843) in which Sir Hugh Gough, accompanied by the governor-general, Lord Ellenborough, defeated the insurgent army of the Gwalior state.