On the parallel of Baghdad, the canal expands to a considerable lake, which again contracts into a narrow channel before it joins the Tigris. The DiTalah, which joins the Tigris 21 miles below the mouth of the fiaklavnyth Canal, brings into the Tigris a large body of water. From the confluenee the course of the Tigris is extremely wiuding, but its general direction is south-east. About 97i miles In a straight line from Baghdad in that direction, it reaches Kut-eleemarah, a small town on its left bank, where a bifurcation takes place ; and here the Tigris, instead of receiving an addition to Its waters from the Euphrates, as by the Saklawiyele sends a considerable stream to that river. The smaller branch, called Shateel-hal, flows south and joins the Euphrates after giving off a number of canals on both sides, about 140 mile; from Ketcl-asnamh : it is navigablo throughout for light boata. The main branch of the Tigris turns off at that town to the north of east, with an apparently undiminished stream (200 yards broad), and flow ing in that direction 23 mita, and then south by east 32 miles, reaches team Oharbi, the most distant part of its course in the plain from the Euphrates (95 miles). At 66 miles (by water) a channel called Hod flows off on the east bank, and joins the Kerkhah near Ilawizah.
Ten or eleven miles below Imam Charbi, the Tigris turns south tc 84° K. long., becomes deep and narrow, and makes • number of abrupt bends through a marshy plain for 40 miles to the tomb of Ezra. II there resumes its former breadth, and winds In a general south direo tion to Its junction with the Euphrates at Kurnah, a distance of about 123 miles by the windings of the river. The current of the Tigris is the ;.lain averages lais averag one mile and a half In the hour.
From the Siklawlyah Canal the Euphrates flows south-east, through pastoral country, 43 miles, to the Mounds of Mohammed : it is here rely 18 miles distant from the Tigris. From the Mounds of Moham ned the river flows across a flat barren couutry to HUM (32° 23' 35' g. 1st, 44" 23' E. long.), which is almost duo south of Baghdad, and between SO and 60 miles distant from it. In this part of its source the stream has nn average breadth Of I;GOar_s ; y, w.t..1 an ardinary depth of 15 feet, and a ourrent of barely 2i miles au hour. From Hillah to a bifurcation a abort way above Lemluu (a distance of T515 miles by. water, or 551 miles S.E. by S. direct), the volume at' water in the Euphrates is materially diminished by canals of Irrigation. The two narrow channels formed at this point reunite at Karayom (33i miles from the bifurcation), after flowing in short bends through a marshy country. Ou issuing from these marshes the
Euphrates suddenly reappears on its former large scale, inclosed between high banks covered with jungle. At 50/ miles from Kamyein the Euphrates is joined by the Hal, the branch which diverges from the Tigris at Kut-el-arnarah ; and 78 miles farther on it receives at Kurnah tho waters of the main branch. The distance (by water) from the remotest sources of the Tigris to Kurnnh is about 1140 miles, little more than half the length of the Euphrates. Tho Euphrates and Tigris now form one tidal channel, known by the of the Shot-el-Arab, about half a mile wide, which flows S.E. by S. almost in a straight line. Five miles below Kurnah, it is joined by the Kerkhah, which, near Hawiza, where It leaves the hills, receives the Hud from the Tigris. [13sonneD, Peahen) of.] From Kurnah to Basrah is 39i miles by the river, and thence to Mohammerah, where the Harter Canal brings the main portion of the Karun into the Shat el-Arab, is 224 miles by water. [Bionneo, Pathetic of.] Between Kurnah and Baarah tho river has an average breadth of GOO yards, with a depth of 21 feet ; between Baarah and Mohamtna.mh, a breadth of 700 yards, and a depth of 30 feet. The current below Kurnah is 2 miles an hour during the flood and 3 miles during the ebb tide. Between Kurnah and Mohammarah the river forms five islands, all large. The Shat-el-Arab discharges the united waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris into the sea at Basrah. It is navigable in mid-stream for vetoes of 500 tons.
The basin of the Euphrates (giving that name to the area drained by all the waters which enter the Persian Gulf by the Shat-el-Arab) comprises about 108,000 square miles. The physical features, pro ducts, &c., of this vast region are described in the articles ARMENIA, BAGHDAD, Pashalic of, MESOPOTAMIA, ASSYRIA, BASTLONIA, &c. The melting of the snows on the mountains and table-lauds of Armenia, causes the Euphrates to rise from the end of March to the end of May, when tho floods are at their height, about ]4 feet. Tho same cause, aided by the melting of the snows on the mountains of Kurdistan, occasions a rise in the Tigris of about 20 feet. The tide ascends the Euphrates above Kurnah, a distance of 60 miles ; it scarcely extends 35 miles up the Tigris.
(Colonel Chesney ; Expedition to the Euphrates and Tigris ; Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London ; Rich, Koordistan; Merle; Fraser, and Ainsworth, Travels; Martin, Memoires sour rArmenie.)