'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎127] (260/458)

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MEMOIRS ON THE 11 TIGRIS. , » 127
present channel, thus offering obstacles to the permanency of any
P lans its coafcrol > which mi o ht liave been contemplated, from the
extensive ravages it was daily committing by being broken in a multi
tude of streams. The wreck, whenever it happened, must have been
complete. The K&tul has ceased to be a running stream, perhaps, for
the last ten centuries, though its continuation, the Nahrw&n by the
damming up °f tbe Diy^h and by other extensive repairs, may have
had its existence prolonged to a comparatively recent period. To con
clude this subject I cannot refrain from quoting Masudi, a work not
generally read, on the irruption of the Tigris in his time, 332. A Hijreh,
Sprenger’s translation, p. p. 2o3 o.
^fter speaking of the Euphrates he says, “ In the same way the
Tigris h as changed its course,” alluding to the districts to the south ;
and afterwards, “ the inhabitants of these places (esh Sherki and Al-kal,
villages of Katirbil, at present not identified, though close to Baghdad)
have had a lawsuit with those on the eastern side (of the Tigris on the
subject of land recovered or lost by change of the bed), who are in pos
session of Rakkah-esh Shemasiyeh, in the reign of Al-Moktaier, &c.
&c. What well-informed men have deposed at this occasion, and what
we have stated, are well known facts at Baghdad. If the water
changes its course in about thirty years the seventh part of a mile,
it will make nearly one mile in two hundred years, and if the water
of a river retires from its original limit four hundred cubits, the place
will be waste. Through these causes places are rendered uncultivated,
and if the water finds a declivity or descent it widens by its course
and rapidity the bed as it carried the ground away to an immense
distance, and wherever it finds a wide and low place it fills it and forms
lakes, marshes, and lagunes. By these means places which have been
cultivated become deserts, and those which were without cultivation
become cultivated. Every body of common sense will understand and
appreciate what we have said/*
He continues, (i All historians who possess just ideas respect ng the
history of the world and its kings, know that in the year in which the
prophet of God sent messengers to the Kesra, # and this was the seventh
year after his flight from Mekka and Medineh, the Euphrates and
Tigris were so much swelled that they never had been so befoie , the
water made immense breeches and holes which were greater than the
♦ The Sassanian kings of Persia.