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'Gazetteer of Arabia Vol. I' [‎579] (616/1050)

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The record is made up of 1 volume (523 folios). It was created in 1917. 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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EUPHRATES
Name.
(1) On which side
situated ; (2) distance
by stream, and (3) average
direction from the
last place.
Nature.
headquarters of a
Nahiyah in the Qadh
of Samawah; the
inhabitants are Bani
'Aridh and Khaza'il.
A short way above
Abu Juwarir is the
small village, also on
the right bank, of
Saiyid Abu Tabakh
and a little below
Abu Juwarir, on
both banks, is the
half-deserted town or
settlement Rumai-
thah to which a
separate artile is
devoted. At Sama
wah there is a boat
bridge.
In this, as in the first section, some canals have been omitted which are dealt with
further on in the paragraph on irrigation.
Except in the first, 5, and again in the last 5 miles of this sectin the bed of the Eu
phrates is for practical purposes dry during a great part of the year ; indeed for months
in summer it is altogether empty, and even in winter it only carries one-thirty-fifth part
of the water of the river. The total length of the section, waterless at times with the
exception of 10 miles, is about 150 miles. The place of the Euphrates in this part of the
country is taken by the Shatt-al-Hindlyah, which opens into the river at both ends and
draws off nearly all the water at the head of the reach to restore a portion of it again
at the tail. The causes of the supersession of the river by the canal.—a process which
does not appear to have been foreseen in 1836 and which may have begun but was not,
apparently, far advanced in 1860-65,—are partly natural and partly artificial. The
chief factor was probably a gradual rise in the level of the river bed about Hillah by a
natrual deposition of silt; and examintion has shown that in the neighbourhood of
Hillah the loss of depth amounts in places to as much as 12 feet. A second influence
came into operation with the opening of the Hindiyah canal, by which the volume and
velocity of the Euphrates stream were reduced and its scour was diminished. A barrage
constructed by the Turkish Government about 1890 at the head of the Hindiyah canal
partically remedied the evil for a time; but in July 1903 this work gave way and the
injury was aggravated, for the whole Euphrates now began to pour down the Hindiyah
channel. Since this event occurred the silting up of the old Euphrates bed below the
take-off of the Hindiyah has been accelerated by dams or Sukur which the Arabs build
in it, especially below Hillah, for the purpose of flooding their lands and by the wasteful
manner in which they withdraw water from the river, particularly by means of the
Dagharah canal, without returning the surplus. Sand also carried by the wind from the
adjoning desert is now doing its part, in choking up the ancient channel; and in places
the accumulations due to this cause have attained a depth of 2| feet.
It is interesting to observe that these changes consitute a return to the conditions of
1,000 years ago, when the main stream of the Euphrates flowed—as it has again
begun to do—by and when the channel on which town subsequentlv grew up
was a canal known as the Suran. The move of the Euphrates into the Hillah channel
appears to have taken place gradually between the 8th and the 12th centuries A.D.
4E2
r

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Content

Volume I of III of the Gazetteer of Arabia. The Gazetteer is alphabetically-arranged and this volume contains entries A through to J.

The Gazetteer is an alphabetically-arranged compendium of the tribes, clans and geographical features (including towns, villages, lakes, mountains and wells) of Arabia that is contained within three seperate bound volumes. The entries range from short descriptions of one or two sentences to longer entries of several pages for places such as Iraq and Yemen.

A brief introduction states that the gazetteer was originally intended to deal with the whole of Arabia, "south of a line drawn from the head of the Gulf of 'Aqabah, through Ma'an, to Abu Kamal on the Euphrates, and to include Baghdad and Basrah Wilayats" and notes that before the gazetteer could be completed its publication was postponed and that therefore the three volumes that now form this file simply contain "as much of the MSS. [manuscript] as was ready at the time". It further notes that the contents have not been checked.

Extent and format
1 volume (523 folios)
Physical characteristics

Foliation: This volume's foliation system 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.

Written in
English in Latin script
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'Gazetteer of Arabia Vol. I' [‎579] (616/1050), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/16/2/1, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100023909214.0x000011> [accessed 28 March 2024]

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