the Niphates and has the more direct course, is the first to overflow
its banks, which it does at the beginning of March, and reaches its
greatest height about the 10th or 12th of May. The Euphrates rises in
the middle of March, and does not attain its highest level till the
close of May. From June onwards it falls with increasing rapidity; by
September all the water which has not been absorbed by the soil has
returned to the river-bed. The inundation does not possess the same
importance for the regions covered by it, that the rise of the Nile
does for Egypt. In fact, it does more harm than good, and the river-side
population have always worked hard to protect themselves from it and to
keep it away from their lands rather than facilitate its access to
them; they regard it as a sort of necessary evil to which they resign
themselves, while trying to minimize its effects.***

* This fact has been established by Ross and Lynch in two
articles in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_,
vol. ix. pp. 446, 472. The Chaldæans and Assyrians called
the gulf into which the two rivers debouched, Nâr Marrâtum,
or "salt river," a name which they extended to the Chaldæan
Sea, i.e. to the whole Persian Gulf.

** Loftus estimated, about the middle of the last century,
the progress of alluvial deposit at about one English mile
in every seventy years; H. Rawlinson considers that the
progress must have been more considerable in ancient times,
and estimates it at an English mile in thirty years. Kiepert
thinks, taking the above estimate as a basis, that in the
sixth century before our era the fore-shore came from about
ten to twelve German miles (47 to 56 English) higher up than
the present fore-shore. G. Rawlinson estimates on his part