on the Gopher-wood and the Persian Gulf. 249 



mouths, and some 7. But it appears from Pliny's account, 

 that long before his time they had united above the embou- 

 chure somewhere, not, as Mr. Beke's paper implies, by en- 

 croachments on the gulf and formation of delta, but simply 

 by the labour of hands; for Pliny immediately adds, " sed 

 longo tempore Euphratem praeclusere Orcheni et accolge agros 

 rigantes nee nisi Pasitigris defertur in mare." And that the 

 stream thus cut off was only one of the streams of the Delta 

 called in the country, as Dr. Vincent says it is to this day, the 

 mouth of the Euphrates, and that these rivers had a higher 

 junction, seems to be the only inference from other ancient 

 authorities, as Arrian, who, while in his Expedition of Alexan- 

 der he says, " the Euphrates disappears in the marshes," and 

 again,'" the Tigris falls into the Persian Gulf;... where the 

 Euphrates terminates there is not much water, it is marshy, 

 and its course is staid*," in his Voyage of Nearchus makes 

 him arrive at its mouth, giving it no doubt its local appella- 

 tion given it by his narrator. Pliny, whose account of the two 

 rivers is not very explicable, adds to the opinions of Juba,&c: 

 " Some state, that beyond Babylon the Euphrates flows in 

 one channel for 87 miles before it is drawn off into several 

 courses on the confines of Charaxf ." Taking this to be the 

 Tigris, and connecting it with his notion about the disappear- 

 ance of the Euphrates, we obtain an intimation of their junc- 

 tion at Khorna, where they now meet, more than 100 miles 

 inland. Strabo observes, that Eratosthenes (about 500 b. c.) 

 had spoken of the figure " which the Tigris and Euphrates 

 make falling together into one ;" and Onesicritus, of both 

 rivers as flowing into a lake, and the Euphrates as flowing out 

 of it to the seaj. Mela says, that " the Euphrates does not 

 continue to the ocean... ceases in a slender stream, and has no 

 mouth §." Ptolemy, although he repeatedly mentions the 

 mouths of the Tigris, has noticed none to the Euphrates, and 

 appears to refer to their junction as far inland j] ; while Justin 

 states that " the Tigris is received into the marshes of the 



* JLig Tsuocyvi 6 ~Ev(p^otrn; ec(pxvt^srctt. — Arrian,Exp.Alex.,\\b. v. cap. 4. 

 'O liiy^ig...ta%cih'hu s; tou tcovtov tou Usgaizou ov ttoTw v%co(> 6 EutpQocrr,; 

 rshivrau x.cct Ttvctyoihns sg raro ara<; wTroTrccvsrxt. — Ibid. lib. vii. cap. 7. 



f "Fiucre, aliqui, ultra Babylonem continuo alveo priusquam distrahi- 

 tur ad rigua 87 mill. pass, ubi desinit alveo munire ad confinium Characis 

 accedente tractu." — Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. vi. cap. 26. 



% 'O TOivoi ovftTrnrTO'jTtc a; h 6 re Ttyyg kou 6 Ev(p^otTYis...cog (pwt. 

 —Strabo, lib. ii. p. 79- et p. 729. 



$" Euphrates non perdurat in pelagus... tenuis rivus despectus emoritur, 

 etnusquam manifesto exitu effluit sed deficit."— Mela, lib. iii. cap. 8. 



i| Ptolemy, p. 145—149. 

 Third Series. Vol. 5. No. 28. Oct. 1834. 2 K 



