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

DURING 19TH CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 35
exact bearings of the frequent windings of the river, to fix
the situations of ruins and other places on its embankments,
and to correct and supplement his former measurements.
On the basis of the rich material thus brought together
personally, he drew the first useful map of the course of the
Tigris from Mosul to a point about eighteen miles to the
north of Baghdad, a map in every way far superior to that
of Carsten Niebuhr, which rests entirely upon information,
and that of Beauchamp, which in all essential features must
be regarded as a
mere copy of the
latter's.
Previously
he
had surveyed a
considerable portion
of the Euphrates,
viz.,from
Hit to about the
thirty - third
degree
north latitude.
All his
material was later
incorporated
into
the results obtained bv the British Euphrates expedition, and
in 1849 edited by Colonel Chesnev, its commander, as sheets
VI. and VII. of his magnificent series of maps of the Euphrates
and Tigris valleys.
After the untimely death of Rich in the fall of 1 821, his
Oriental antiquities, coins, and an extraordinary collection of
eight hundred manuscripts 1
Kelek or Native Raft composed of Goat-Skins
were purchased by the English
ropes fastened close together to a frame of rough logs. On one part of this
very ancient means of navigation a kind of hut covered with matting is
generally raised as a necessary shelter against rain and sun.
1
According to Forshall, 3 of these are in Greek, 59 in Syriac, 8 in
Carshunic, 389 in Arabic, 231 in Persian, 108 in Turkish, 2 in Armenian,