Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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In January, 1911, Nazim Pasha, governor-general of Bagdad, on behalf of the Turkish government, signed a contract with Sir John Jackson, of Westminster, London, for the erection of a dam at the head of the Hindia branch of the Euphrates, as the first step in carrying out these recommendations, and the work is to be pushed forward as rapidly as possible.

Mesopotamia is that portion of Turkey lying between the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers—an area about three hundred miles long and varying from fifty to two hundred miles in width. Within the oval, according to the estimates of the engineers, are about 12,000,000 acres, of which 9,000,000 is desert and 2,500,000 fresh-water swamp, and they estimate that 6,000,000 acres can be reclaimed. There are several large, shallow lakes fed by the annual overflow of the Euphrates and Tigris. Both are large rivers having their sources in the lakes and mountains of Armenia and emptying into the Persian Gulf about fifty miles below the town of Kurna, where they join their waters and become one.