412 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
The surveys and levels are now in hand for a project for the great 
central canal of the delta, which will irrigate 3,000,000 acres of the 
best land in Mesopotamia, and carry water free of silt. Northwest 
of Baghdad, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, lies a strange 
depression known as the Akkar Kuf Lake. It has an area of 40 
square miles at extreme low water, and 300 square miles when full. 
Its level is 35 feet below that of the Euphrates, and 10 below that 
of the Tigris. Into this depression runs the Sakhlawia branch of 
the Euphrates, the ancient Hiddekel, or the third of the rivers of 
Genesis, with a channel 250 feet wide and 25 feet deep at the head, 
which splits up into some twenty small channels as it enters the west- 
ern side of the lake. The head of the Sakhlawia branch will be 
provided with two powerful regulators to control the supply leaving 
the Euphrates. On the Euphrates downstream of the branch will 
be a barrage to control the river itself. These works will insure our 
supply from the side of the Euphrates. 
On the Tigris we propose to construct at Beled, near the site of 
Nimrod’s dam, a weir for controlling the river. This work will be 
above the Tigris rapids, where the water is 60 feet higher than that 
of Lake Akkar Kuf. From the upstream side of this weir we shall 
construct a canal to irrigate the rich lands north of Baghdad, with 
an escape into the lake. The escape will keep the canal free of silt, 
and feed the lake with Tigris water. We shall thus have all the 
water we need from both rivers, entering the lake at its western and 
northern sides. 
From the southeastern end of the lake, near Baghdad, will start a 
canal which will run along the right bank of the Tigris and finally 
tail into the Hai branch or ancient Tigris near its head. In the days 
to come this canal will irrigate 6,000,000 acres, but not now. The 
excessive silt of some fifteen days per annum, which does all the mis- 
chief, will be decanted in the lake, and so will all the silt we do not 
need. At certain stages of the flood, when the river water is not 
heavily charged with silt, it will be possible to take in supplies at 
different points of the canal. All these details will come later. We 
are now concerned with broad issues. 
The left bank of this canal, which I shall submit to the authorities 
to be called after the name of the first constitutional sovereign of 
Turkey, will act as a dike for protecting the country from the Tigris 
floods, and will, moreover, carry a railway to transport the abundant 
harvests of the country. We shall again see Sippara, Kutha, Nil, 
Niffur, Erech, Tel Senkere, and Tel Lo important centers of life and 
prosperity. 
Dealing with water free of silt, it will not be necessary to complete 
the whole length of the canal before we can begin sending down our 
supplies, as we should have had to do with muddy water. We shall 
