Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

64 EXPLOBATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
Government," 1
from which twenty-five years later Heinrich
Kiepert excavated it for the benefit of Oriental students,
deserves a few words also in this connection.
Being stationed with his armed boat " Nitocris " at
Baghdad, Jones naturally made this city the base of his
operations. His attention was first directed to a re-examination
of the course of the Tigris above the point where
the Shatt el-Adhem empties into the former. In April,
1 846, when the annual rise of the river had provided the
necessary water for his steamer, he advanced northward.
Notwithstanding the increased force of the current, which
at times almost equalled the power of the machine, seriouslv
interfering with his progress, Jones reached the rapids of the
Tigris above Tekrit, and by his measurements and triangulations
greatly improved the earlier map of Rich and furnished
considerable new information.
In the years 1848-50, during the months of March and
April, when the lack of water and the absence of a settled
population did not yet
prove too great an obstacle to topographical
work in regions where everv accommodation was
wanting, he made three exploration tours into the districts
to the east of the Tigris. His intention was to determine
the tract of the ancient Nahrawan Canal, which, leaving
the Tigris about halfway between Tekrit and Samarra, had
once brought life and fertility to the whole territory as far
down as Kud(t) el-'Amara, to-day almost entirely covered
with the sand of the desert or with large brackish water
pools.
Of even greater importance from an Assyriological standpoint
are his " Researches in the vicinitv of the Median
Wall of Xenophon and along the old course of the River
Tigris," carried on in
March, 1850, shortly before he closed
1
It was with great difficulty and only after long searching that I finally procured
a copv of his *« Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government,"
No. xliii., 1857, for my own library.