I-jO history of 



marifime places on die coasts of Turkey. The Dwina, whic'n 

 takes its rise in a province of the same name in Russia, that 

 riuis a course of three hundred leagues, and disembogues into the 

 White Sea, a little below Archangel. 



The largest rivers in Asia are, the Hohanho, in China, which 

 is eight hundred and fifty leagues in length, computing from its 

 source at Raja Ribroii, to its mouth in the gulf of Changi. The 

 Jenisca of Tartary, about eight hundred leagues in length, from 

 the lake Selinga, to the Icy Sea. This river is, by some, siii>- 

 posed to supply most of that great quantity of drift wood wliicb 

 is seen floating in the seas neai- the Arctic circle. The Oby, 

 of five hundred leagues, running from the lake of Kila into the 

 Northern Sea. The Amour, in Eastern Tartary, whose course 

 is aljout five hundred and seventy-five leagues, from its source 

 to its entrance into the sea of Kamtschatka. The Kiam, in 

 China, five hundred and fifty leagues in length. The Ganges, 

 one of the most noted rivers in the world, and about as long as 

 the former.* It rises in the mountains which separate India 



• The Ganges pursues a ronr>e of 1350 miles. It is a smnoth.ruiming and 

 DKVigable river, and is supposed to employ upon it 30,000 boatmen. About 

 '220 miles from the sea (but .30") reckoning the windings of the rivers,) com. 

 nience.s the liead of tlie Delta of the Ganges, whieJi is considerably more than 

 t«'iee the area of the Nile. The inundation of the river is in the latter end o{ 

 July, and overflows an extent of 100 miles in breadth eontiguous to the river. 

 The inundations of the Ganges and the Nile differ in this particular (that is to 

 say, the lands of Bengal and Egypt.) that the Nile owes its floods entirely to 

 tlie rain water that falls in the mountains, near its source ; but the inunda. 

 tions ill Bengal are as much occasioned by the rain that-falls there, as by th" 

 waters of the Ganges; as a proof of it, tlie lands in s^enera! are overflowed 

 to a considerable height long before the bed of the river is filled. The aver- 

 age swell of the Ganges, in the rainy seasons, is about .31 feet, and its fc! 1 

 ibout four inches per mile ; and the river flows at the rate of about three 

 miles in the hour, but in the rainy season the rate is increased to six miles in 

 the hour. The average quantity of water discharged by the Ganges into the 

 sea is 80,000 cubic feet per second : biit during the rainy season the quantity 

 di.«charged amounts to 405.000 cubic feet. The Ganges varies its channel very 

 much during its course tlirough Bengal, wearing away the banks on one 

 side, while land is foniK^d on the other side. The Burrampooter, which lia-s 

 its source from the opposite side of tlie same mountains (the mountains of 

 T)iibet) timt give rise to the Ganges, first takes its course eastward, or di- 

 rectly opposite to that of the Ganges, through the country of Thibet, where 

 ii is named the Sanpoo, or Zanciu, which bears the snme interpretation aa 

 the Gonga of Hindostan : namely, the River. The Burrampooter enters 

 Bengal on tlie north-east, after which it makes a circuit round the western 

 (.rtiintol tl.e Marrow mountiiins ; and then altering its course to south it meeta 



