'Mesopotamia' [‎7r] (13/152)

Mesopotamia]
SURFACE
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sected by wadis (water-courses, dry except after rain)
running towards the Euphrates. The rains produce
some grass vegetation, which for a time affords a- fair
amount of camel-grazing. The usual low desert scrub
is also found. West of the Euphrates, from Hit down
to Nejef, the Syrian desert (Hamad) has the same
general character.
Upper Mesopotamia. —The plains of the Jezireh
(El-Jezire, "the island"), which lie between the
Tigris and Euphrates, extend to about 48,000 sq. miles.
They are generally more or less undulating, though
they contain some wide expanses of flat country. Here
and there they are traversed by ranges of hills;
most of these are quite low, but the Jebel Sin jar, a line
of basalt hills west of Mosul, rises to some" 3,000 ft.
above the surrounding country; the surface of the
plains is open and treeless.
A great part of the northern Jezireh has a good soil,
and large areas could be brought under cultivation by
means of irrigation works. South of the Jebel Sinjar
and the lower Khabur the plain becomes increasingly
arid, and towards its lower end turns to a hard desert,
the surface of which is composed of gravel, gypsum,
marl, borax, or sand. There are also lar^e areas in
which water from wadis collects, and on evaporation
leaves an incrustation of salt.
On the western and eastern sides of the Jezireh the
Euphrates and Tigris have cut for themselves shallow
valleys or troughs 1 to 5 miles wide, bordered by low
hills or cliffs. At the bottom of these valleys occur
stretches of alluvium where the rivers have deposited
their sediment in flood-time. Parts of the Euphrates
trough are moderately cultivated; elsewhere the valley
is either bare or filled with tamarisk and other scrub.
I here is a considerable amount of cultivation along
the I tanks of the Tigris between Mosul and the mouth
of the Great Zab. South of the Lesser Zab, down to
the beginning of the alluvial plain near Beled, the
river valley is mostly untilled. The southern plains,
east of the middle Tigris, are open steppes of clay and
f 285—66 1 y} 2