New Catholic Encyclopedia Vol 4 Com Dyn 2nd

Edition Gale Group pdf download

https://ebookgate.com/product/new-catholic-encyclopedia-
vol-4-com-dyn-2nd-edition-gale-group/

Get Instant Ebook Downloads – Browse at https://ebookgate.com

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations 11th Edition Gale

Group

https://ebookgate.com/product/worldmark-encyclopedia-of-the-
nations-11th-edition-gale-group/

ebookgate.com

Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States 6th Edition The Gale

Group Staff Writers

https://ebookgate.com/product/worldmark-encyclopedia-of-the-
states-6th-edition-the-gale-group-staff-writers/

ebookgate.com

Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations 5th edition

10 volume set 2007 Uxl - Gale Group

https://ebookgate.com/product/junior-worldmark-encyclopedia-of-the-
nations-5th-edition-10-volume-set-2007-uxl-gale-group/

ebookgate.com

Encyclopedia of World Biography Supplement 2nd ed Edition

Gale

https://ebookgate.com/product/encyclopedia-of-world-biography-
supplement-2nd-ed-edition-gale/

ebookgate.com
Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology 2nd Edition Bonnie B.
Strickland

https://ebookgate.com/product/gale-encyclopedia-of-psychology-2nd-
edition-bonnie-b-strickland/

ebookgate.com

Grzimek s Animal Life Encyclopedia 2nd Ed Vol 4 Fishes I

2nd Edition Bernhard Grzimek

https://ebookgate.com/product/grzimek-s-animal-life-encyclopedia-2nd-
ed-vol-4-fishes-i-2nd-edition-bernhard-grzimek/

ebookgate.com

The Gale Encyclopedia of Cancer 2nd Edition Jacqueline L.

Longe

https://ebookgate.com/product/the-gale-encyclopedia-of-cancer-2nd-
edition-jacqueline-l-longe/

ebookgate.com

Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine Fourth Edition Volume 4 L O

Laurie J. Fundukian (Project Editor)

https://ebookgate.com/product/gale-encyclopedia-of-medicine-fourth-
edition-volume-4-l-o-laurie-j-fundukian-project-editor/

ebookgate.com

Encyclopedia of Management 6th Edition Gale

https://ebookgate.com/product/encyclopedia-of-management-6th-edition-
gale/

ebookgate.com
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
numberless springs and lakes of it surround some parts of the
Caspian Sea. It is found in immense quantities in various parts of the
world.
 RIVERS.
Rivers have had a greater influence on the location and fortunes
of the human race than almost any other physical cause, and, since
their velocity has been overcome by steam navigation, they have
become the highway of the nations.
They frequently rise in lakes, which they unite with the sea; in
other instances they spring from small elevations in the plains, from
perennial sources in the mountains, alpine lakes, melted snow and
glaciers; but the everlasting storehouses of the mightiest floods are
the ice-clad mountains of table-lands.
Rivers are constantly increased, in descending the mountains and
traversing the plains, by tributaries, till at last they flow into the
ocean, their ultimate destination and remote origin. “All rivers run
into the sea, yet the sea is not full,” because it gives in evaporation
an equivalent for what it receives.
The Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Pacific Oceans are directly or
indirectly the recipients of all the rivers, therefore their basins are
bounded by the principal watersheds of the continents; for the basin
of a sea or ocean does not mean only the bed actually occupied by
the water, but comprehends also all the land drained by the rivers
which fall into it, and is bounded by an imaginary line passing
through all their sources. These lines generally run through the
elevated parts of a country that divide the streams which flow in one
direction from those that flow in another. But the watershed does
not coincide, in all cases, with mountain-crests of great elevation, as
the mere convexity of a plain is often sufficient to throw the streams
into different directions.
From the peculiar structure of the high land and mountain-chains,
by far the greater number of important rivers on the globe flow into
the ocean in an easterly direction, those which flow to the south and
north being the next in size, while those that flow in a westerly
direction are small and unimportant.
The course of all rivers is changed when they pass from one
geological formation to another, or by dislocations of the strata: the
sudden deviations in their directions are generally owing to these
circumstances.
None of the European rivers flowing directly into the Atlantic
exceed the fourth or fifth magnitude, except the Rhine; the rest of
the principal streams come to it indirectly through the Baltic, the
Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. It nevertheless receives nearly
half the waters of the old continent, and almost all the new, because
the Andes and Rocky Mountains, which form the watershed of the
American continent, lie along its western side, and the rivers which
rise on the western slope of the Alleghanies are tributaries to the
Mississippi, which comes indirectly into the Atlantic by the Gulf of
Mexico.
The Arctic Ocean drains the high northern latitudes of America,
and receives those magnificent Siberian rivers that originate in the
Altaï range from the Steppe of the Kerghis to the extremity of
Kamtchatka, as well as the very inferior streams of North European
Russia. The running waters of the rest of the world flow into the
Pacific. The Caspian and Lake Aral are mere salt-water lakes, which
receive rivers but emit none. However, nearly one-half of all the
running water in Europe falls into the Black Sea and the Caspian.
Mountain-torrents gradually lose velocity in their descent to the
low lands by friction, and when they enter the plains their course
becomes still more gentle, and their depths greater. A slope of one
foot in 200 prevents a river from being navigable, and a greater
inclination forms a rapid or cataract. The speed, however, does not
depend entirely upon the slope, but also upon the height of the
source of the river, and the pressure of the body of water in the
upper part of its course; consequently, under the same
circumstances, large rivers run faster than small, but in each
individual stream the velocity is perpetually varying with the form of
the banks, the winding of the course, and the changes in the width
of the channel. The Rhone, one of the most rapid European rivers,
has a declivity of one foot in 2620, and flows at the rate of 120 feet
in a minute; the sluggish rivers in Flanders have only one-half that
velocity. The Danube, the Tigris, and the Indus are among the most
rapid of the large rivers. In flat countries rivers are generally more
meandering, and thus they afford a greater amount of irrigation; the
windings of the Vistula are nearly equal to nine-tenths of its direct
course from its source to its mouth.
When one river falls into another, the depth and velocity are
increased, but not always proportionally to the width of the channel,
which sometimes even becomes less, as at the junction of the Ohio
with the Mississippi. When the angle of junction is very obtuse, and
the velocity of the tributary stream great, it sometimes forces the
water of its primary to recede a short distance. The Arve, swollen by
a freshet, occasionally drives the water of the Rhone back into the
Lake of Geneva; and it once happened that the force was so great
as to make the mill-wheels revolve in a contrary direction.
Streams sometimes suddenly vanish, and after flowing
underground to some distance reappear at the surface, as in
Derbyshire. Instances have occurred of rivers suddenly stopping in
their course for some hours, and leaving their channels dry. On the
26th of November, 1838, the water failed so completely in the Clyde,
Nith, and Teviot, that the mills were stopped eight hours in the lower
part of their streams. The cause was the coincidence of a gale of
wind and a strong frost, which congealed the water near their
sources. Exactly the contrary happens in the Siberian rivers, which
flow from south to north over so many hundreds of miles; the upper
parts are thawed, while the lower are still frozen, and the water, not
finding an outlet, inundates the country.
The alluvial soil carried down by streams is gradually deposited as
their velocity diminishes; and if they are subject to inundations, and
the coast flat, it forms deltas at their mouths; there they generally
divide into branches, which often join again, or are united by
transverse channels, so that a labyrinth of streams and islands is
formed. Deltas are sometimes found in the interior of the continents
at the junction of rivers, exactly similar to those on the ocean,
though less extensive: deltas are said to be maritime, lacustrine, or
fluviatile, according as the stream that forms them falls into the sea,
a lake, or another river.
Tides flow up rivers to a great distance, and to a height far above
the level of the sea: the tide is perceptible in the river of the
Amazons 576 miles from its mouth, and it ascends 255 miles in the
Orinoco.
In the temperate zones rivers are subject to floods from autumnal
rains, and the melting of the snow, especially on mountain-ranges.
The Po, for example, spreads desolation far and wide over the plains
of Lombardy; but these torrents are as variable in their recurrence
and extent as the climate which produces them. The inundations of
the rivers in the torrid zone, on the contrary, occur with a regularity
peculiar to a region in which meteoric phenomena are uniform in all
their changes. These floods are due to the periodical rains, which, in
tropical countries, follow the cessation of the trade-winds after the
vernal equinox and at the turn of the monsoons, and are thus
dependent on the declination of the sun, the immediate cause of all
these variations. The melting of the snow no doubt adds greatly to
the floods of the tropical rivers which rise in high mountain-chains,
but it is only an accessory circumstance; for although the snow-
water from the Himalaya swells the streams considerably before the
rains begin, yet the principal effect is owing to the latter, as the
southern face of the Himalaya is not beyond the influence of the
monsoon, and the consequent periodical rains, which besides prevail
all over the plains of India traversed by the great rivers and their
tributaries.
Under like circumstances, the floods of rivers, whose sources have
the same latitude, take place at the same season; but the periods of
the inundations of rivers on one side of the equator are exactly the
contrary of what they are in rivers on the other side of it, on account
of the declination of the sun. The flood in the Orinoco is at its
greatest height in the month of August, while that of the river of the
Amazons, south of the equinoctial line, is at its greatest elevation in
March.[117] The commencement and end of the annual inundations in
each river depend upon the mean time of the beginning, and on the
duration of the rains in the latitudes traversed by its affluents. The
periods of the floods in such rivers as run towards the equator are
different from those flowing in an opposite direction; and as the rise
requires time to travel, it happens at regular but different periods in
various parts of the same river, if very long. The height to which the
water rises in the annual floods depends upon the nature of the
country, but it is wonderfully constant in each individual river where
the course is long; for the inequality in the quantity of rain in a
district drained by any of its affluents is imperceptible in the general
flood, and thus the quantity of water carried down is a measure of
the mean humidity of the whole country comprised in its basin from
year to year. By the admirable arrangement of these periodical
inundations the fresh soil of the mountains, borne down by the
water, enriches countries far remote from their source. The waters
from the high lands designated as the Mountains of the Moon, and
of Abyssinia, have fertilized the banks of the Nile through a distance
of 2500 miles for thousands of years.
When rivers rise in mountains, water communication between
them in the upper parts of their course is impossible; but when they
descend to the plains, or rise in the low lands, the boundaries
between the countries drained by them become low, and the
different systems may be united by canals. It sometimes happens in
extensive and very level plains, that the tributaries of the principal
streams either unite or are connected by a natural canal, by which a
communication is formed between the two basins—a circumstance
advantageous to the navigation and commerce of both, especially
where the junction takes place far inland, as on the Orinoco and
Amazons in the interior of South America. The Rio Negro, one of the
largest affluents of the latter, is united to the Upper Orinoco in the
plains of Esmeralda by the Cassiquiare—a stream as large as the
Rhine, with a velocity of 12 feet in a second. Baron Humboldt
observes that the Orinoco, sending a branch to the Amazons, is, with
regard to distance, as if the Rhine should send one to the Seine or
Loire. At some future period this junction will be of great
importance. These bifurcations are frequent in the deltas of rivers,
but very rare in the interior of continents. The Mahamuddy and
Godavery, in Hindostan, seem to have something of the kind; and
there are several instances in the great rivers of the Indo-Chinese
peninsula.
The hydraulic system of Europe is eminently favourable to inland
navigation, small as the rivers are in comparison with those in other
parts of the world; but the flatness of the great plain, and the
lowness of its watershed, are very favourable to the construction of
canals. In the west, however, the Alps and German mountains divide
the waters that flow to the Atlantic on one side, and to the
Mediterranean and Black Sea on the other; but in the eastern parts
of Europe the division of the waters is merely a more elevated ridge
of the plain itself, for in all plains such undulations exist, though
often imperceptible to the eye. This watershed begins on the
northern declivity of the Carpathian Mountains, about the 23d
meridian, in a low range of hills running between the sources of the
Dnieper and the tributaries of the Vistula, from whence it winds in a
tortuous course along the plain to the Valdai table-land, which is its
highest point, 1200 feet above the sea; it then declines northward
towards Onega, about the 60th parallel, and lastly turns in a very
serpentine line to the sources of the Kama in the Ural mountains
near the 62d degree of north latitude. The waters north of this line
run into the Baltic and White Sea, and, on the south of it, into the
Black Sea and the Caspian.
Thus, Europe is divided into two principal hydraulic systems; but
since the basin of a river comprehends all the plains and valleys
drained by it and its tributaries from its source to the sea, each
country is subdivided into as many natural divisions or basins as it
has primary rivers, and these generally comprise all the rich and
habitable parts of the earth, and are the principal centres of
civilization, or are capable of becoming so.
The streams to the north of the general watershed are very
numerous; those to the south are of greater magnitude. The
systems of the Volga and Danube are the most extensive in Europe;
the former has a basin comprising 640,000 square miles, and is
navigable throughout the greater part of its course of 1900 miles. It
rises in a small lake on the slopes of the Valdai table-land, 550 feet
above the level of the ocean, and falls into the Caspian, which is 83
feet 7 inches below the level of the Black Sea, so that it has a fall of
633 feet in a course of more than 2400 miles. It carries to the
Caspian one-seventh of all the river-water of Europe.
Danube drains 300,000 square miles, and receives 60 navigable
tributaries. Its quantity of water is nearly as much as that of all the
rivers that empty themselves into the Black Sea taken together. Its
direct course is 900 miles, its meandering line is 2400. It rises in the
Black Forest at an elevation of 2850 feet above the level of the sea,
so that it has considerable velocity, which, as well as rocks and
rapids, impedes its navigation in many places, but it is navigable
downwards, through Austria, for 600 miles, to New Orsova, from
whence it flows in a gentle current to the Black Sea. The commercial
importance of these two rivers is much increased by their flowing
into inland seas. By canals between the Volga and the rivers north of
the watershed, the Baltic and White Seas are connected with the
Black Sea and the Caspian; and the Baltic and Black Sea are also
connected by a canal between the Don and the Dnieper. Altogether,
the water system of Russia is the most extensive in Europe.
The whole of Holland is a collection of deltoid islands, formed by
the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt—a structure very favourable
to commerce, and which has facilitated an extensive internal
navigation. The Mediterranean is already connected with the North
Sea by the canal which runs from the Rhone to the Rhine; and this
noble system, extended over the whole of France by 7591 miles of
inland navigation, has conduced mainly to the improved state of that
great country.
Many navigable streams rise in the Spanish mountains; of these
the Tagus has depth enough for the largest ships as high as Lisbon.
Its actual course is 480 miles, but its direct line much less. In point
of magnitude, however, the Spanish rivers are of inferior order, but
canals have rendered them beneficial to the country. Italy is less
favoured in her rivers, which only admit vessels of small burthen;
those on the north are by much the most important, especially the
Po and its tributaries, which by canals connect Venice and Milan with
various fertile provinces of Northern Italy but whatever advantages
nature has afforded to the Italian states have been improved by able
engineers, both in ancient and modern times.
The application of the science of hydraulics to rivers took its rise in
Northern Italy, which has been carried to such perfection in some
points, that China is the only country which can vie with it in the
practice of irrigation. The lock on canals was in use in Lombardy as
early as the 13th century, and in the end of the 15th it was applied
to two canals which unite the Ticino to the Adda, by that great artist
and philosopher Leonardo da Vinci: about the same time he
introduced the use of the lock into France.[118]
Various circumstances combine to make the British rivers more
useful than many others of greater magnitude. The larger streams
are not encumbered with rocks or rapids; they all run into branches
of the Atlantic; the tides flow up their channels to a considerable
distance; and above all, though short in their course, they end in
wide estuaries and sounds, capable of containing whole navies—a
circumstance that gives an importance to streams otherwise
insignificant, when compared with the great rivers of either the old
or new continent.
The Thames, whose basin is only 5027 square miles, and whose
length is but 240 miles, of which, however, 204 are navigable,
spreads its influence over the remotest parts of the earth; its depth
is sufficient to admit large vessels even up to London, and
throughout its navigable course a continued forest of masts display
the flags of every nation: its banks, which are in a state of perfect
cultivation, are the seat of the highest civilization, moral and
political. Local circumstances have undoubtedly been favourable to
this superior development, but the earnest and energetic
temperament of the Saxon races has rendered the advantages of
their position available. The same may be said of other rivers in the
British islands, where commercial enterprise and activity vie with
that on the Thames. There are 2790 miles of canal in Britain, and,
including rivers, 5430 miles of inland navigation, which, in
comparison with the size of the country, is very great; it is even said
that no part of England is more than 15 miles distant from water
communication.
On the whole, Europe is fortunate with regard to its water
systems, and its inhabitants are for the most part alive to the
bounties which Providence has bestowed.
 AFRICAN RIVERS.
In Africa the tropical climate and the extremes of aridity and
moisture give a totally different character to its rivers. The most
southerly part is comparatively destitute of them, and those that do
exist are of inferior size, except the Gariep, or Orange River, which
has a long course on the table-land, but is nowhere navigable. From
the eastern edge of the table-land of South Africa, which is very
abrupt, rise all those rivers which flow across the plains of
Mozambique and Zanguebar to the Indian Ocean. Of these, the
Zambesi, or Quillimane, is probably the largest: it is said to have a
course of 900 miles, and to be navigable during the rains for 200 or
300 miles from its mouth. The Ozay, not far south of the equator, is
also believed to be of great extent, and the Juba, more to the north;
all these streams have little water at their mouths during the dry
season, but in the rainy season they are navigable. Some of those
still farther north do not reach the sea at all times of the year, but
end in lakes and marshes, as the Haines and Hawash. The first, after
coming to within a small distance of the Indian Ocean, runs
southward parallel to the coast, and falls into a very large and deep
lake about a degree north of the equator. Between the Hawash and
the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb there is no river of any note. In many
parts of the coast, near the rivers, grain ripens all the year, yielding
from 80 to 150 fold, and every eastern vegetable production might
be raised. The Hawash runs through a low desert country inhabited
by the Dankali Beduins: that river is the recipient of the waters
which come from the eastern declivity of the table-land of Abyssinia,
while the Nile receives those of the counter slope.
The part of the table-land between the 18th parallel of south
latitude and the equator is the origin from whence the waters flow to
the Atlantic on one hand, and to the Mediterranean on the other.
Those which go to the Atlantic rise south of Lake N’yassi, chiefly in a
ridge of no great elevation which runs from S.W. to N.E. to the west
of the dominions of the Cambeze, and, after falling in cascades and
rapids through the chains that border the table-land on the west,
fertilize the luxuriant maritime plains of Benguela, Congo, Angola,
and Loando. The Zaire, or Congo, by much the largest of these, is
navigable for 140 miles, where the ascent of the tide is stopped by
cataracts. The lower course of this river is 5 or 6 miles broad, full of
islands, and 160 fathoms deep at its mouth. Its upper course, like
that of most of these rivers, is unknown; the greater number are
fordable on the table-land, but, from the abrupt descent of the high
country to the maritime plains, none of them afford access to the
interior of South Africa.
The mountainous edge of the table-land, with its terminal
projections, Senegambia and Abyssinia, which separate the northern
from the southern deserts, are the principal source of running water
in Africa. Various rivers have their origin in these mountainous
regions, of which the Nile and the Niger yield in size only to some of
the great Asiatic and American rivers. In importance and historical
interest the Nile is inferior to none.
Two large rivers unite their streams to form the Nile—the Bahr-el-
Abiad, or White Nile, and the Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue Nile; but the
latter is so far inferior to the Bahr-el-Abiad that it may almost be
regarded as a tributary. The main stream has never been ascended
by any traveller above 4° 42ʹ 42ʺ north latitude, where a ledge of
gneiss crossing it arrested the progress of the second expedition
sent by the Viceroy of Egypt to discover its source. Bahr-el-Abiad, or
the true Nile, is supposed, from the report of the natives, to rise,
under the name of the Tubiri, at a comparatively small distance from
the sea, in the country of Mono Moézi, which is a continuation of the
high plateau of Abyssinia, situate to the north of the great Lake
Zambéze, or N’yassi. The natives say that it flows from the lake
itself; at all events it seems to be pretty certain that its origin is in
the mountainous or hilly country of Mono Moézi, a word which in all
the languages of that part of Africa signifies the Moon: hence, the
Nile has been said, since the days of Ptolemy, to rise in the
Mountains of the Moon. Amidst many windings it takes a general
direction towards the N.E. to the 14th northern parallel, whence it
follows the same course till its junction near Khartum with the Blue
Nile in the plains of Sennaar.
The Shoaberri and Godjeb, the chief affluents of the White Nile,
come from the east; the former makes a great circuit round the
country of Berri before it falls into the Nile, and the Godjeb, which
has its origin in the great forest already mentioned, in the Galla
country, south of Abyssinia, makes a similar spiral détour round
Kaffa, and under the name of Subat joins the Nile, which it enlarges
to nearly double its size.
The Abyssinian branch of the Nile, known as the Bahr-el-Azrek, or
Blue River, rises under the name of the Dedhesa in the Galla country,
south of Abyssinia, about 73 miles west of Sokka, the capital of
Enarea. It springs from a swampy meadow in the same elevated
plains where the Godjeb and other affluents of the White Nile
originate, and after a completely spiral course, in which it separates
the kingdoms of Guma and Enarea, it maintains a general north-
westerly direction till it joins the White Nile at Khartum. Of the many
tributaries to the Blue River, the Abái, the Nile of Bruce, is the
greatest and most celebrated. Its sources are in a swampy meadow
near Mount Giesk, in the district of Sákkata, from whence it takes a
circular direction round the peninsula of Gojam, passing through
Lake Dembea, and receiving many affluents from the mountain-
chain that forms the cone of the peninsula, and at last falls into the
Dedhesa or Bahr-el-Azrek, in about 11° N. latitude. From that point
no stream of any consequence joins either the Blue River, or the
united streams of the Blue and White Rivers, till 160 miles below
their confluence, where the Atbarah, or Takkazie, falls into it. This
river, which is the principal tributary of the Nile, is formed by two
branches. The Takkazie rises in the mountains of Lasta, near
Lalíbata, one of the most celebrated places in Abyssinia, remarkable
for its churches hewn out of the living rock, and the Tselari, which
springs from Mount Biála, the northern extremity of the high land of
Lasta, which divides the head waters of the two branches. The
united stream, after winding like the other rivers of this country,
joins the Nile in 18° N. latitude, the northern limit of the tropical
rains.
The Abyssinian rivers in the early part of their course are little
more than muddy brooks in the dry season, but during the rains
they inundate the plains. They break from the table-lands through
fissures in the rocky surface, which are at first only a few yards
wide, but gradually increase to several miles; the streams form
cataracts from 80 to more than 100 feet high, and then continue to
descend by a succession of falls and rapids, which decrease in height
as they go northwards to join the main stream. The Takkazie takes
its name of “The Terrible” from the impetuosity with which it rushes
through the chasms and over the precipices of the mountains.
A peculiarity of most of the principal affluents of the Nile is their
spiral course, so that, after having formed a curve of greater or less
extent, generally round insulated mountain masses, they return
upon themselves at a short distance from their sources. It is by no
means improbable that the head stream of the Nile itself takes a
spiral course round a lofty mountain mass, similar to the snow-clad
mountains of Sámien and Káffa.[119]
From the Takkazie down to the Mediterranean, a distance of 1200
miles, the Nile does not receive a single brook. The first part of that
course is interrupted by cataracts, from the geological structure of
the Nubian desert, which consists of a succession of broad sterile
terraces, separated by ranges of rocks running east and west. Over
these the Nile falls in nine or ten cataracts, the last of which is at Es-
Souan (Syene), where it enters Egypt. Most of them are only rapids,
where each successive fall of water is not a foot high. That they
were higher at a former period has recently been ascertained by Dr.
Lepsius, the very intelligent traveller sent by the King of Prussia at
the head of a mission to explore that country. He found a series of
inscriptions on the rocks at Sennaar, marking the height of the Nile
at different periods; and it appears from these, that in that country
the bed of the river had been 30 feet higher than it is now.
Fifteen miles below Cairo, and at 90 miles from the sea, the Nile is
divided into two branches, of which one, running in a northerly
direction, enters the Mediterranean below Rosetta; the other, cutting
Lower Egypt into two nearly equal parts, enters the sea above
Damietta, so that the delta between these two places has a sea-
coast of 187 miles. The fall from the great cataract to the sea is two
inches in a mile.
The basin of the Nile, occupying an area of 500,000 square miles,
has an uncommon form: it is wide in Ethiopia and Nubia, but for the
greater part of a winding course of 2750 miles it is merely a verdant
line of the softest beauty, suddenly and strongly contrasted with the
dreary waste of the Red Desert. Extending from the equatorial far
into the temperate zone, its aspect is less varied than might have
been expected on account of the parched and showerless country it
passes through. Nevertheless, from the great elevation of the origin
of the river, the upper part has a perpetual spring, though within a
few degrees of the equator. At the foot of the table-land of Abyssinia
the country is covered with dense tropical jungles, while the rest of
the valley is rich soil, the detritus of the mountains for thousands of
years.
As the mean velocity of the Nile, when not in flood, is about two
miles and a half an hour, a particle of water would take twenty-two
days and a half to descend from the junction of the Takkazie to the
sea; hence, the retardation of the annual inundations of the Nile in
its course is a peculiarity of this river, owing to some unknown cause
towards its origin which affects the whole stream. In Abyssinia and
Sennaar the river begins to swell in April, yet the flood is not
sensible at Cairo till towards the summer solstice; it then continues
to rise about a hundred days, and remains at its greatest height till
the middle of October, when it begins to subside, and arrives at its
lowest point in April and May. The height of the flood in Upper Egypt
varies from 30 to 35 feet; at Cairo it is 23, and in the northern part
of the delta only 4 feet.
Anubis, or Sirius, the Dog-star, was worshipped by the Egyptians,
from its supposed influence on the rising of the Nile. According to
Champollion, their calendar commenced when the heliacal rising of
that star coincided with the summer solstice—the time at which the
Nile began to swell at Cairo. Now this coincidence made the nearest
approach to accuracy 3291 years before the Christian era; and as
the rising of the river still takes place precisely at the same time and
in the same manner, it follows that the heat and periodical rains in
Upper Ethiopia have not varied for 5000 years. In the time of
Hipparchus, the summer solstice was in the sign of Leo, and
probably about that period the flowing of the fountains from the
mouths of lions of basalt and granite was adopted as emblematical
of the pouring forth of the floods of the Nile. The emblem is still
common in Rome, though its origin is probably forgotten, and the
signs of the Zodiac have moved backwards more than 30°.
The two greatest African rivers, the Nile and the Niger, are
dissimilar in almost every circumstance; the Nile, discharging for
ages into a sea, the centre of commerce and civilization, has been
renowned by the earliest historians, sacred and profane, for the
exuberant fertility of its banks, and for the learning and wisdom of
their inhabitants, who have left magnificent and imperishable
monuments of their genius and power. Egypt was for ages the seat
of science, and by the Red Sea it had intercourse with the most
highly cultivated nations of the east from time immemorial. The
Niger, on the contrary, though its rival in magnitude, and running
through a country glowing with all the brilliancy of tropical
vegetation, has ever been inhabited by barbarous or semi-barbarous
nations; and its course till lately was little known, as its source still
is. In early ages, before the Pillars of Hercules had been passed, and
indeed long afterwards, the Atlantic coast of Africa was an unknown
region, and thus the flowing of the Niger into that lonely ocean kept
the natives in their original rude state. Such are the effects of local
circumstances on the intellectual advancement of man.
The sources of the Niger, Joliba, or Quorra, are supposed to be on
the northern side of the Kong Mountains, in the country of
Bambarra, more than 1600 feet above the level of the sea. From
thence it runs north, and, after passing through Lake Debo, makes a
wide circuit in the plains of Soudan to Timbuctoo through eight or
nine degrees of latitude: then bending round, it again approaches
the Kong Mountains, at the distance 1000 miles in a straight line
from its source; and having threaded them, it flows across the low
lands into the Gulf of Guinea, a course of 2300 miles. In the plains
of Soudan it receives many very large affluents from the high land of
Senegambia on the west, and the Tchadda on the east—a navigable
river larger than itself, probably the outlet of the great lake Tchad,
which drains the high land of Komri, designated by the ancients as
the Mountains of the Moon, and falls into it a little below Fundah,
after a course of some hundred miles: thus, the Niger probably
affords an uninterrupted water-communication from the Atlantic to
the heart of Africa.[120] Long before leaving the plains of Soudan it
becomes a noble river with a smooth stream, gliding at the rate of
from 5 to 8 miles an hour, varying in breadth from 1 to 8 miles. Its
banks are studded with densely populous towns and villages, groves
of palm-trees, and cultivated fields.
This great river divides into three branches near the head of a
delta which is equal in area to Ireland, intersected by navigable
branches of the principal stream in every direction. The soil is rich
mould, and the vegetation so rank that the trees seem to grow out
of the water. The Nun, which is the principal or central branch, flows
into the sea near Cape Formosa, and is that which the brothers
Lander descended. There are, however, six rivers which run into the
Bight of Benin, all communicating with the Niger, and with one
another. The old Calabar is the most eastern; it rises in the high land
of Calbongos, and is united to the Niger by a natural canal. The
Niger, throughout its long winding course, lies entirely within the
tropic of Cancer, and is consequently subject to periodical
inundations, which reach their greatest height in August, about 40 or
50 days after the summer solstice. The plains of Soudan are then
covered with water and crowded by boats. These fertile regions are
inaccessible to Europeans from the pernicious climate, and
dangerous from the savage condition of many of the tribes.
The coast of Guinea, west from the Niger, is watered by many
streams, of no great magnitude, from the Kong Mountains. The
table-land of Senegambia is the origin of the Rio Grande, the
Gambia, the Senegal, and others of great size; and also of many of
an inferior order that fertilize the luxuriant maritime plains on the
Atlantic. Their navigable course is cut short by a semicircular chain
of mountains which forms the boundary of the high land, through
which they thread their way in rapids and cataracts. The Gambia
rises in Foula Toro, and after a course of about 600 miles enters the
Atlantic by many branches connected by natural channels, supposed
at one time to be separate rivers. The Senegal, the largest river in
this part of Africa, is 850 miles long. It receives many tributaries in
the upper part of its course, and the lower is full of islands. It drains
two lakes, has several tributaries, and is united to the basin of the
Gambia by the river Neriko.
 CHAPTER XVIII.

Asiatic Rivers—Euphrates and Tigris—River Systems South of the

Himalaya—Chinese Rivers—Siberian Rivers.

The only river system of importance in Western Asia is that of the

Euphrates and Tigris. In the basin of these celebrated streams,
containing an area of 230,000 square miles, immense mounds of
earth, in a desolate plain, point out the sites of some of the most
celebrated cities of antiquity—of Nineveh and Babylon. Innumerable
remains and inscriptions, the records of times very remote, have
been discovered by adventurous travellers, and bear testimony to
the truth of some of the most interesting pages of history. The
Euphrates, and its affluent the Merad-Chaï (supposed to be the
stream forded, as the Euphrates, by the Ten Thousand in their
retreat), rise in the heart of Armenia, and, after running 1800 miles
on the table-land to 38° 41ʹ of north latitude, they join the northern
branch of the Euphrates, which rises in the Gheul Mountains, near
Erzeroum. The whole river then descends in rapids through the
Taurus chain, north of Romkala, to the plains of Mesopotamia.
The Tigris rises in the mountains to the N. and W. of Dyarbekir,
and after receiving several tributaries from the high lands of
Kurdistan, it pierces the Taurus range about 100 miles above Mosul,
from whence it descends in a tortuous course through the plain of
ancient Assyria, receiving many streams from the Tyari mountains,
inhabited by the Nestorian Christians, and, farther south, from those
of Luristan. The country through which it flows is rich in cornfields,
date-groves, and forest-trees.[121] Near to the city of Bagdad the
Tigris and Euphrates approach to within 12 miles, where they were
once connected by two great canals. From this point they run nearly
parallel for more than 100 miles, encircling the plain of Babylon or
Southern Mesopotamia—the modern Irak-Arabi. The two rivers unite
at Korna, and form one stream, which, under the name of Shat-el-
Arab, runs for 150 miles before it falls into the Persian Gulf. The
banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, once the seat of an extensive
population, and of art, civilization, and industry, are now nearly
deserted, covered with brushwood and grass, dependent on the
rains alone for that luxuriant vegetation which, under an admirable
system of irrigation, formerly covered them. Excepting the large
centres of population, Bagdad and Mosul, the inhabitants consist of
nomade Kurdish tribes. What remains of civilization has taken refuge
in the mountains, where the few traces of primitive and most ancient
Christianity, under the misapplied denomination of Nestorian
Christians, are to be found in the Tyari range. The floods of the
rivers are very regular in their period; beginning in March, they
attain their greatest height in June.
The Persian Gulf may be navigated by steam all the year, the
Euphrates only eight months; it might, however, afford easy
intercourse with eastern Asia, as it did in former times. The distance
from Aleppo to Bombay by the Euphrates is 2870 miles, of which
2700, from Bir to Bombay, are by water; in the time of Queen
Elizabeth this was the common route to India, and a fleet was then
kept at Bir, expressly for that navigation.
Six rivers of the first magnitude descend from the southern side of
the table-land of eastern Asia and its mountain barriers, all different
in origin, direction, and character, while they convey to the ocean a
greater volume of water than all the rivers of the rest of the
continent conjointly. Of these, the Indus, the double system of the
Ganges, and Brahmapootra, and the three parallel rivers in the Indo-
Chinese peninsula, water the plains of southern Asia; the great
system of rivers that descend from the eastern terraces of the table-
land irrigates the fertile lands of China; and lastly, the Siberian
rivers, not inferior to any in magnitude, carry the waters of the Altaï
and northern slope of the table-land to the Arctic Ocean.
The hard-fought battles and splendid victories recently achieved
by British valour over a bold and well-disciplined foe have added to
the historical interest of the Indus and its tributary streams, now the
boundaries of our Asiatic territories.
The sources of the Indus were only ascertained in 1812; the
Ladak, the largest branch of the Indus, has its origin in the snowy
mountains of Karakorum; and the Shyook, which is the smaller
stream, rises in the Kentese or Gangri range, a ridge parallel to the
Himalaya, which extends along the table-land of Tibet, north and
west of the sacred lake of Mánasarowar. These two streams join
north-west of Ladak and form the Indus; the Sutlej, its principal
tributary, springs from the lake of Rakas Tal, which communicates
with that of Mánasarowar, both situated in a valley between the
Himalaya and Gangri chain at the great elevation of 15,200 feet.
These rivers, fed by streams of melted snow from the northern side
of the Himalaya, both flow westward along the extensive longitudinal
valley of western Tibet. The Sutlej breaks through the Himalaya
about the 75th meridian, and traverses the whole breadth of the
chain, in frightful chasms and clefts in the rocks, to the plains of the
Punjab; the Indus, after continuing its course on the table-land
through several degrees of longitude farther, descends near the
junction of the Himalaya and the Hindoo Coosh, west of the valley of
Cashmere, to the same plain. Three tributaries—the Jelum or
Hydaspes, the Chenab or Acescines, and the Ravee or Hydraötes, all
superior to the Rhone in size—flow from the southern face of the
Himalaya, and with the Sutlej (the ancient Hyphasis) join the Indus
before it reaches Mittun; hence the name Punjab, “the plain of the
five rivers,” now one of the most valuable countries in the East. From
Mittun to the ocean, the Indus, like the Nile, does not receive a
single accessary, from the same cause—the sterility of the country
through which it passes. The Cabul river, which rises near Guzni, and
is joined by a larger affluent from the southern declivities of the
Hindoo Coosh, flows through picturesque and dangerous defiles, and
joins the Indus at the town of Attock, and is the only tributary of any
magnitude that comes from the west.
The Indus is not favourable to navigation: for 70 miles after it
leaves the mountains the descent in a boat is dangerous, and it is
only navigable for steam-vessels of small draught of water; yet, from
the fertility of the Punjab, and the near approach of its basin to that
of the Ganges at the foot of the mountains, it must ultimately be a
valuable acquisition, and the more especially because it commands
the principal roads between Persia and India, one through Cabul and
Peshawer, and the other from Herat through Candahar. The delta of
the Indus, formerly celebrated for its civilization, has long been a
desert; but from the luxuriance of the soil, and the change of
political circumstances, it may again resume its pristine aspect. It is
60 miles long, and presents a face of 120 miles to the sea at the
Gulf of Oman, where the river empties itself by many mouths, of
which only three or four are navigable: one only can be entered by
vessels of 50 tons, and all are liable to change. The tide ascends
them with extraordinary rapidity for 75 miles, and so great is the
quantity of mud carried by it, and the absorbing violence of the
eddies, that a vessel wrecked on the coast was buried in sand and
mud in two tides. The annual floods begin with the melting of the
snow in the Himalaya in the end of April, come to their height in
July, and end in September. The length of this river is 1500 miles,
and it drains an area of 400,000 square miles.
The second group of South Indian rivers, and one of the greatest,
is the double system of the Ganges and Brahmapootra. These two
rivers, though wide apart at their courses, have their sources little
removed from each other, on opposite sides of the central ridge of
the Himalaya, and which, converging to a common delta, constitute
one of the most important groups on the globe.
Mr. Alexander Elliot, of the Body Guard in Bengal, son of Admiral
Elliot, with his friends, are the first who have accomplished the
arduous expedition to the sources of the Ganges. The river flows at
once in a very rapid stream not less than 40 yards across, from a
huge cave in a perpendicular wall of ice at the distance of about
three marches from the Temple of Gungoo-tree, to which the
pilgrims resort. Mr. Elliot says, “The view from the glacier was
perfectly amazing; beautiful or magnificent is no word for it,—it was
really quite astonishing. If you could fancy a bird’s-eye of all the
mountains in the world in one cluster, and every one of them
covered with snow, it would hardly give you an idea of the sight
which presented itself.”
Many streams from the southern face of the Himalaya unite at
Hurdwar to form the great body of the river. It flows from thence in
a south-easterly direction through the plains of Bengal, receiving in
its course the tribute of 19 or 20 rivers, of which 12 are larger than
the Rhine. About 220 miles in a direct line from the Bay of Bengal,
into which the Ganges flows, the innumerable channels and
branches into which it splits form an intricate maze over a delta
twice as large as that of the Nile.
The Brahmapootra, a river equal in the volume of its waters to the
Ganges, may be considered as the continuation of the Dzangho
Tchou or river of Lassa, which rises near the sources of the Sutlej
and the Indus, in long. 82° E. After watering the great longitudinal
valley of eastern Tibet, it makes a sudden bend to the south in long.
90° E., cutting through the Himalaya chain, as the Indus does at its
opposite extremity between Iskasdo and Attock; after which it
receives several tributaries from the northern mountains of the
Birman empire; but very little is known of this part of its basin. The
upper part of the Brahmapootra is parallel to the Himalaya chain,
until it enters Upper Assam, where, passing through the sacred pool
of Brahma-Koond, it receives the name which it bears in the lower
part of its course—Brahmapootra, the “off-spring of Brahma:” the
natives call it the Lahit, Sanscrit for the “Red River.” In Upper Assam,
through which it winds 500 miles, and forms some extensive channel
islands, it receives six very considerable accessories, of which the
origin is unknown, though some are supposed to come from the
table-land of Tibet. They are only navigable in the plains, but vessels
of considerable burthen ascend the parent stream as far as Sundiva.
Before it enters the plains of Bengal, below Goyalpara, the
Welcome to Our Bookstore - The Ultimate Destination for Book Lovers
Are you passionate about books and eager to explore new worlds of
knowledge? At our website, we offer a vast collection of books that
cater to every interest and age group. From classic literature to
specialized publications, self-help books, and children’s stories, we
have it all! Each book is a gateway to new adventures, helping you
expand your knowledge and nourish your soul
Experience Convenient and Enjoyable Book Shopping Our website is more
than just an online bookstore—it’s a bridge connecting readers to the
timeless values of culture and wisdom. With a sleek and user-friendly
interface and a smart search system, you can find your favorite books
quickly and easily. Enjoy special promotions, fast home delivery, and
a seamless shopping experience that saves you time and enhances your
love for reading.
Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and
personal growth!

ebookgate.com