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'Arabia. Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office - no 90' [‎3] (18/148)

The record is made up of 1 volume (69 folios). It was created in 1919. It was written in English. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .

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Arabia]
SURFACE
3
high sand-billows. The western part of the Ruba
el-Khali is called ahkaf, but this is possibly only a local
name for heavy nefud.
(4) Harra, a surface of corrugated and fissured
lavas or scorias, overlying either plain or mountain.
It is very bad going, but generally occurs only in
patches, which can often be avoided. There are
harra tracts in the west central region, the best known
being that of Kheibar, north of Medina.
In addition to these varieties of desert proper,
Arabia contains great tracts of steppe country. These
have a hard or dusty surface, with occasional natural
water-holes and permanent coarse vegetation in hol
lows, and are the chosen home of the camel-breeding
nomads. There are vast stretches of steppe to the west
of Nejd; but elsewhere the comparatively fertile cen
tral plateau is surrounded by desert.
Within this ring of desert and steppe lies an elevated
core of varying fertilitv, which mav be divided into
three groups of more or less connected oases:—
{\) Jebel Sham,mar, south of the northern Nefud.
Its chief town is Hail, and its oases owe their existence
to the drainage from two lofty ranges, Jebel Aia and
Jebel Selmah.
(2) Kasim. The fertility of this district, which lies
between Jebel Shammar and Nejd proper, is mainly
due to the constant underground and occasional surface
flow of the great Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Rummah. Its chief towns are
Anaize, Boreida, and Rass.
(3) Nejd, by far the most extensive group, covers,
with its steppe intervals, some 10,000 square miles. It
consists principally of a more or less continuous chain
of oases, lying either upon or under the flanks of the
plateau of Jebel Toweik. The present capital, Riad,
lies in Arid, the central oasis.
The other fertile tracts of Arabia form an outer but
by no means continuous ring on or near the coasts, the
zone of fertility being widest in the mountainous
region of Yemen in the south-west.
[285-8] B 2

About this item

Content

This volume contains information on the geography, political history and economic conditions of Arabia and was published by the Historical Section of the Foreign Office in April 1919.

It is divided into four sections: 'Geography Physical and Political'; 'Political History'; 'Political Conditions' and 'Economic Conditions'. There is an Appendix, containing tables regarding trade in Aden, Muscat and Bahrein, 1909-1917.

There is a map 'Sketch Map of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. and Arabia', compiled by the War Office on June 1914.

Extent and format
1 volume (69 folios)
Physical characteristics

Foliation: There is a foliation sequence, which is circled in pencil, in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. of each folio. It begins on the first folio with text, on number 1, and ends on the map on a sleeve on the inside back cover, on number 70.

Pagination: There is also an original pagination, iv-vi, 2-127.

Written in
English in Latin script
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'Arabia. Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office - no 90' [‎3] (18/148), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/20/E85, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100023512781.0x000013> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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