| Show Irrigation to t Restore 1 Bible Lands to Former mer Greatness ess By y SIR WILLIAM oc K C M G Director of Irrigation tiO in Mesopotamia Me m ftP CT UT of Eden came a river E 1 E OUT o which watered a garden and from thence It was part parted ed ad abd became four heads Plans and levels In band hand starting from the spot where Jewish Jewish tradition t placed the gates of Paradise I have followed the traces of the tha four rivers of ot the early chapters of Genesis Appointed by the new Turkish Gov Government Government Government to engage engineers and sur survey sur survey survey vey and level the rivers and canals of ot the delta and devise projects for the rehabilitation of the tho country I first set myself the task of oft mastering the ancient systems of Irrigation Irrigation t gation Improving upon them when I could and an adopting them when I could find no better substitute I started with the Garden of Eden The Th Euphrates enters Its Ita delta a few tew miles below Hit at the gates of ot Baby Babylonia Babylonia Babylonia lonia where Cyrus the Youngers army accompanied by the ten thou thousand thousand thousand sand left the deserts and entered the tha alluvial plains which terminate at the Persian Gulf Upstream of Hit past Anan Anah the veris ver verIs verla Is la today a of very indifferent cataracts where the current turns giant water wheels which lift water and Irrigate the narrow valley to the edge of or desert Garden succeeds gar garden garden garden den orchards and date groves lie be tween fields of or cotton and life Ute and prosperity are before us wherever the water can reach I do not think It pos possible possible sible to Imagine anything more like a practical paradise than the country near An Anah ah Every tree and crop must have been familiar to Adam except the cotton crop Such was the Garden of or Eden and Its site must have been near an outcrop of hard bard rock like we see at Anah where whereIn In coming down the th river we first meet the date palm which even today Is a tree of life Ure to the whole Arab world Below Hit flit no place can be found for a garden arden without lifting apparatus and pro protective protective protective dikes because otherwise any gar garden garden garden den Irrigated in the time of low Jow supply would be Inundated In n flood and nd if It Irrigated Irrigated Irrigated gated In flood would be left high and dry dr In the time of low supply The Book of or Genesis In the Bible Indi Indicates Indicates indicates cates quite plainly the position of or the Garden of Eden mentioning four stream which started Just below It I 1 have traced all aU of them The first was Pison represented today by the many armed depressions of Hab bania bana and Abu between HamadI and which are not Inaptly de described described described scribed from the point of view of a dweller In as encompassing the whole land of which lay be between between between tween the frontier of Egypt and Assyria The second river was th the mod ern Hindla Rindia the of Ezekiel who lies buried burled on Its banks the Ahava of Ezra the of Alexander and the Kufa of the early It Is represented as encompassing the whole land of Kis or Kutha or Cush Gush the father f ther of Nimrod the beginning of whose king kingdom kingdom kingdom dom was Erech and Akkad and Calneh and Babylon The ancient town of Kutha lay Jay on the Kutha which was in all probability the main stream of the Eu Euphrates Euphrates Euphrates In the earliest times and on whose whoso banks were were situated Kutha Nil Erech and Tel which date from days long prior to Babylon the capital of founded on the Babylonian branch when the other had bad silted up The Tha third river was the modern branch some feet wide and 25 feet deep today running like a millrace Into the wide AIdar depression and flowing out of it into the Tigris at Baghdad If It left alone the would be capable of carrying more than half the waters of the tho Eu Euphrates Euphrates Euphrates and nd rendering the country be between between between tween the two rivers uncultivable In Ir ancient times it was undoubtedly a sec second second second ond head of the Tigris and from the point of view of the dweller In Babylonia Baby Babylonia Babylonia lonia it was accurately described Inthe in Bible as that it is that goeth In front of a Assyria And the fourth furth river was the Eu Euphrates Euphrates Euphrates itself Itsel the main stream The great value of ot water free of silt for the early development of the coun country country country try is fa the first serious le lesson s n I 1 bave have learned from an examination of the ancient systems of irrigation The Tigris and Euphrates carry In flood during a few tew days every year year over oer four times as much ch silt slit as the Nile Irrigation with Such such uch water will willbe willbe be no easy task even today It was terribly difficult in the old days when they had no cement and were ignorant of at every kind of weir or barrage ex except except except an earthen dam completely shut shuo shutting shutting ting off the waters and causing con convulsions convulsions convulsions among the people lower down downIn In following the history of ot the delta the second lesson we have nave learned Is the necessity of controlling the floods of o the th Euphrates if It any serious development of the country is Ig to be undertaken The Tha dwellers in the Euphrates delta tired of anarchy and confusion gladly f 4 f f t welcomed any strong man ready to pro produce produce produce duce order and method in a country which could not exist without order and method and they the found their mighty one In the person of ot NImrod according to Genesis GenSIs or according to the tablets The dwellers In the delta today are In the same position I have seen armed peasants all Arabs vol volunteer volunteer volunteer to help the government troops to keep order Every Arab family like that of Isaac has some ome of Its Us sons after alter the peaceable Jacob and Some come after the Be Bedouin Bedouin Bedouin douin Esau All AI the early kings who did anything worth recording have left memorials of f the canals they constructed to which they tb y gave names strangely similar to the 11 il or or r Bridge of Blessings Bless Blessings BlessIngs ings which the Egyptians apply today to the first barrage constructed on the Nile NUe As population Increased we hear of reservoirs for storing water for perennial Irrigation especially for tor the th Important Canal which came down from and Irrigated Babylon It Is recorded of ot Cyrus the Great that he too utilized his army for digging numerous canals from the or Many of ot these canals are In use today Alexander the Greats historians give a vivid description of ot the irrigation of ot the country and the difficulty the Baby Babylonians BAbylonIans lonians had in closing their canals In flood and clearing them In Inlow low supply Alexander entered the work with all aU his energy and genius and today we w can only admire the Judgment with which he treated the Hindla branch or the In the time of ot the kings of Persia in II the early centuries cen rles of the Christian Ch era er the th delta probably saw Its greatest prosperity The gigantic N Canal feet wide and 15 feet Ctet deep dee irrigated all the country to the east of the Tigris and the DUall irrigated gated that to the west While during the earliest times Tel TelLo TelLo TelLo Lo and Ur of the Ch were w re the heart of or the country SIppar and Babylon took their place In is Baby Babylonian Babylonian lonian Ionian times and and In that of or the Persians In the seventh century of our era enu the Arabs overthrew the Persian Govern Government ment merit ment And substituted Kufa and Basra Baste as capitals in place of the earlier cities clUes These soon oon l gave place ta to Bagdad Ba dad dadi i o V Vo b t F r ftP which till today has remained the most man Important town in the delta Bagdad saw Its greatest days das about A 4 D BOO In Inthe inthe inthe the reign of ot the great Calip al Under the Arabs the prosperity of the country steadily declined but the final blow bl w was given by the Mongols under Knan and s sunder under Timur in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries In the anarchy and confusion which ensued all the great works of an antiquity antiquity were swept away one after af er another until not a single one remains remain today The first works before the hydraulic engineer are the protection of the th country from floods and the provision of water as free from rom silt slit as possible The levels and surveys of the en engineers engineers engineers who are working In Bagdad have shown that we can do both We j have already to the Turkish Government a project for escaping the excess waters of the Euphrates dam the depressions of the ancient Pison i ithe the first of the four rivers of Genesis I If It Noah had bad been an hydraulic engineer en engineer engl gl eer he would have constructed the Pison river escape instead of or an ark and saved not only his family but his I country as welL The surveys s and levels are now In 1111 hand for tor a project for the great Central i Canal of or the delta which will Irrigate acres of the best land la to Meso and carry water freo free of or silt sl t The Tho head of the branch the of Genesis will be pro provided vided sided with two powerful regulators to control contra the supply leaving the Eu Euphrates ph rates I Eventually we expect that our work will Irrigate e acres In order to carry the vast amount I of produce which will be cultivated on nn this land larid a railway Is needed connect connecting connecting ing Bagdad with Ith the Mediterranean Such a railway would have Its outlet near Tyre and SIdon which served the same purpose In biblical times Umes The works we are proposing now noV noVare are drawn on sure and truthful lines Unes and the day they are carried out the i two great rivers will hasten to respond and Babylonia will yet once again see seo i large waste places becoming Inhabited and the desert blossoming like therose the therose therose rose roseY I o ij J Y 1 I I I I |
