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'Arabia. Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office - no 90' [82] (97/148)
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. .
Transcription
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82
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS [No. 90
ground by girls in hand-querns, or crushed on a con
cave stone with a pestle.
Irrigation. —The tropical heat and the scanty rain
fall make artificial irrigation essential over by far the
greater part of Arabia. Rain in appreciable quan
tities only falls in Asir, Yemen, the Aden Protectorate,
the Hadhramaut and Oman, and there only in a very
narrow belt of higher land, the low-lying littoral get
ting in some cases almost nothing. Such rain as falls
is Frequently in thunderstorms, and is therefore less
useful for agriculture than gentler showers. The
absence of any great permanent rivers makes far-
reaching schemes of irrigation impossible. All that
can be done is to invent devices for utilising to the
utmost every drop of the scanty moisture provided by
Nature. This is rendered more difficult by internal
dissensions. The Arab will foul wells belonging to a
hostile tribe, and will stop up his own wells when he
moves to other districts. Moreover, the isolation of the
country and the poverty of its inhabitants have hither
to prevented their acquisition of modern appliances.
For instance, the oil pumps which are being increas
ingly used in Mesopotamia for raising the Euphrates
water foir irrigation purposes, and which could equally
well be employed in Arabia, are at present unknown
there.
Water for irrigation purposes is obtained from four
chief sources—the wadis, wells worked by animal
traction, rain cisterns, and conduits.
(1) Wadis. Xhe most promising condition for irri
gation is the presence of a
wadi
A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows.
, whether it be full or
dry, for below its bed there exists nearly always a
subsoil abounding in moisture, which can in most cases
easily be procured; while, even if the banks are high
and steep, as in the Hadhramaut, the water can be
raised by lifts. In Asir, which gets the fringe! of the
south-western monsoons, the wadis are swollen by
floods from the hills, and the water is diverted into
channels by dams. In Kasim the fertility of a long
chain of oases is d'ue to the moisture in the subsoil of
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 View the complete information for this record
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'Arabia. Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office - no 90' [82] (97/148), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/PS/20/E85, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100023512781.0x000062> [accessed 18 April 2024]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- IOR/L/PS/20/E85
- Title
- 'Arabia. Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office - no 90'
- Pages
- front, back, spine, edge, head, tail, front-i, i-r:i-v, 1:6, 1:130, ii-r:ii-v, back-i
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence