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

62 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
it
does, the only source of our topographical knowledge for
by far the larger part of the course of the two rivers.
Naturally
the accuracy attainable
survey by water can only be relative.
for any map prepared from a
Rich's survey of the
middle course of the Tigris, carried on from a primitive raft
on a " swift-flowing " river,
1
afterwards incorporated in
Colonel Chesney's fundamental work, must therefore be
even less accurate than that of the staff of the Euphrates
Expedition, conducted from a well-equipped steamer on a
river with considerably less current.
The great influence which these maps exercised upon
future archaeological explorations in the countries between
the Euphrates and the Tigris, lies in the fact that for the
first time they showed the enormous wealth of ancient ruins,
canals, and other remains of former civilizations along the
entire embankment of both rivers. Ainsworth, who manifested
a particular interest in the archaeology and historv
of the country, described carefully what he saw on his daily
excursions, thus enabling us to form a first correct idea of
the difference between the numerous barren hills crowned
with the ruins of extensive castles, temples, and towers,
along the upper course of the Euphrates, and the thousands
of ancient and modern canals, numberless mounds of baked
and sun-dried bricks, half buried under the sands of the
desert or submerged under the encroaching water of the
rivers, turning the country into immense swamps for many
miles, along the lower course of both the Euphrates and
Tigris. Through his " Researches in Assvria, Babylonia,
and Chaldaea " the same scholar added not only considerably
to our knowledge of the general features of Mesopotamia
and 'Iraq el-'Arabi (climate, vegetation, zoology, and
natural history), but he also furnished the first scientific
treatment of the latest deposits by transport, of the physical
geography and geology of the alluvial districts of Babylonia,
1
The name of the Tigris signifies "swift-flowing."