16 PEKSIAN GULF DATES. 



These are composed of a set of pulleys, a bullock-skin bag- holding* 20 

 to 40 gallons, and a rope attached to a horse or bullock, which walks 

 laboriously up and down a steep dirt incline, hoisting the water as 

 it descends and lowering the bag into the river as it backs up the 

 declivity. (PL IV, fig. 2.) None of our unpicturesque but practical 

 Yankee windmills, with their ugly shapes, has yet invaded the banks 

 of the Tigris, although during the spring season, when the water is 

 most required, strong, steady breezes are almost constantly blowing. 

 Once lifted intc small, shallow reservoirs, the water is led off by 

 trenches and manipulated in the usual way, giving each palm a periodic 

 watering by filling its particular trench. 



What the irrigation conditions in this region were when Babylon 

 was a great city and the whole county was as thickly populated as 

 Egypt is to-day can be judged by a study of the remarkable ruins of 

 the great canals and dams which are to be found in this noAv desolate 

 country. 



Sir William Willcocks, K. C. M. G., whose name is so well known 

 from his remarkable work on the Assuan dam in Egj T pt, has recently 

 made a study of the old canal system of Chaldea and has drawn a most 

 vivid picture of the irrigation system of ancient Babylon. a He shows 

 how favorably it compared with the system of ancient Egypt, and 

 points out in the following words the cause of the destruction of its 

 greatest canal, the Nahrawan, and the consequent widespread desola- 

 tion which was produced: 



What was the real cause of the ruin of all this agricultural wealth and these great 

 cities, and the creation of the vast deserts which we see to-day? An examination of 

 the map will make it evident. Those who have seen the headworks of the Ganges 

 Canal at Hard war in northern India, where the rubble weirs across the shingly bed 

 of the Ganges lead the stream past Hardwar into the Ganges Canal above the steep 

 bluffs of Kankhal, will readily understand what I am going to say. Let such imagine 

 what would be the fate of the great Ganges Canal if the Ganges River were to desert 

 the Hardwar channel, flow down the Budh Ganga, and then turning abruptly west- 

 ward eat away the Kankhal bluffs until the canal was cut into by the river. It 

 would mean ruin to the whole canal with its 500 kilometers of main channels and 

 3,500 kilometers of minor channels. Such a fate has overtaken the Nahrawan Canal. 



The Tigris has a mean width of under 400 meters, according to information kindly 

 supplied me by M. Moritz, librarian of the Khedivial Library at Cairo, Avhile the 

 lower heads of the Nahrawan Canal have a mean width of about 100 meters each, 

 according to the plans of Commander Felix Jones. To insure the supply of this 

 great canal we are, moreover, informed that the Tigris has constructed across its 

 ancient bed, downstream of the intake of these feeder canals, massive rubble weirs. 

 To me it seems conclusive that, in Chaldea' s evil day, the main stream of the Tigris 

 deserted its ancient bed, followed the scoured and degraded bed of the canal whose 

 regulating head had been swept away, and cut out a new channel for itself at right 

 angles to its old course. A careful examination of the plans and levels can lead to 

 no other conclusion. Once the river had changed its course, the old bed gradually 



« Willcocks, Sir William. The Restoration of the Ancient Irrigation Works on the 

 Tigris. Cairo, National Printing Department, 1903. 



