Fit as Fiddles and as Hard as Nails

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[12th October 1916] grant that, within that number of years, the delta of the Euphrates has advanced 150 miles; or one mile in every 30 years.
It is tempting to carry our calculations further. We might probe into the past and estimate the number of years that have elapsed since the site of the ruins of Babylon lay beneath the sea, or we might peer into the future and reckon the time when the Persian Gulf will be silted up and converted into dry land. But such calculations rest on too insecure a foundation to be of real value, though they possess the worth of giving the mind some impress of the relation between the most active geological changes and the long lapse of time.

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[12th October 1916] now far inland. This would dispose of the modern suggestion that the present junction of the rivers is the site of the ancient Garden of Eden, for, wherever this garden may have existed, there was certainly at that time no junction of these mighty streams.
It surprised me that the delta of this river should have advanced to so great a distance within the period of human history. For since Ur was a city on the sea-coast and now lies 150 miles inland, we must conclude that from the time of its prosperity until now, the silt of the Euphrates has filled a great trough in the ocean 150 miles in length. Chaldean dates are unreliable and all calculations of this kind are based on somewhat conjectural testimony. But if we are correct in believing that Ur reached the height of its prosperity 4500 years ago and was than a sea coast town, we must

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[12th October 1916] dad railway. Assuredly if this project materialized, then would Kuwait rise in greatness and the town of Basrah hasten to oblivion.
So I think it has been with Ur of the Chaldees. Just as Basrah will certainly lose its claim to the first city in Southern Mesopotamia by its ever-increasing isolation from the sea, so, I think did Ur lose its position as the first city in Southern Chaldea by its ever-widening separation from the coast and its final stranding in the desert.
That Ur was once a maritime city reminds us that the Euphrates discharged its waters at a point very different from where they now enter the sea. There could then have been no junction of the Euphrates and the Tigris. Each river must have had a separate delta at places which are

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[12th October 1916] draught must pass sixty-seven miles up the river to discharge their cargoes on its quays; the largest vessels cannot cross the bar. Thus Basrah is already stranded beyond the reach of the greatest ships, and as it moves further and further inland its facilities for trade must proportionately diminish; its prosperity must wane. Dredgers may for a time keep the ocean free to it; by new railways its fortunes may temporarily rise; but the die of the delta is on it; the time will come when it is so far stranded in the desert as to be no longer accessible to the sea, and then the city is doomed. Some more accessible port must replace it. And we hear of the town of Kuwait at the head of the Gulf proposed as a harbour for vessels; we hear of it suggested as an ocean terminus for the Bagh-

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[12th October 1916] phrates slowly but persistently advanced further into the sea and Ur was always being isolated more and more inland, the city would gradually lose its maritime position, difficulties in maintain free commerce would increase, its previous source of wealth would diminish, and the greatness of Ur would commence to decline. As the stranded city would year by year be left higher on the land as the delta advanced at the expense of the sea; its decline would pass into decay and decay into final ruin. Indeed we see the commencement of this sequel of events when we look to the towns that today exist at the head of the Persian Gulf. The town of Basrah now thrives, owing its prosperity to ocean trade. But year by year it is passing further from the sea. Steamers of moderate

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[12th October 1916] ant-lions dig their pits in the decaying sand, an occasional lizard haunts them or wandering wolves prowl about their ruins.
Ur of the Chaldees: –  Thus lying on the ruin-dust is the geological evidence that Ur, in the days of its prosperity, was a seaport town, that marine shells lived and the ocean waves rolled their boulders on a site which is now stranded in the desert. No doubt Ur originally owed its greatness as a city and its authority as a capital to its maritime situation where the Euphrates then joined the sea. There the city would grow and prosper, nourished with the trade of other lands until at length it held the premier place amongst all the cities of Southern Chaldea.
(8) And it may not be unreasonable to speculate that, as the delta of the Eu-

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[12th October 1916] tain guns in position on the temple of the moon.

Continued from previous Geological notes:
It needs but the most cursory observation to detect the origin of the occasional mounds that are seen in a journey across this desert. They are low and smooth-backed, rising gently from the level plain. Their surface is covered with loose dust and on them lie fragments of pottery, brick and pieces of dessicated  pitch. These mounds are artificial; beneath the covering of wind-swept sands and decaying rubbish are walls and streets and houses that once went to build a Chaldean city.
For this desert is a graveyard of mighty nations. It carries our mind back through Arab civilization to the royal pride of Babylon, further back

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[12th October 1916] tant mounds which buried ancient cities, were lifted by the mirage sheer into the sky like giant cliffs above the elusive waters. There was something solemn in standing on this temple of the moon-God where Chaldean priests fell down in worship and sages studied the starry heavens. Around was a glorious spectacle of Natures infinite expanse which, different though it was in Chaldean times, yet must have inspired with reverence those ancient scientists who from this trembling summit would penetrate Natures secrets. Below was the pile of dust; the garment of this historic ground; all that was now left of this remarkable city, the mightiest in Southern Chaldea. A few months later we saw Gurkhas picketing the mound, trenches dug into the ruined walls, breastworks built of the exposed bricks, and moun-

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[12th October 1916] by being originally spread over sheets of matted reeds and the sheets interposed between the successive lines of slabs. It was surprising to see the reeds still existing embedded in the pitch and perfectly preserved since those remote times when “they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter*”. Today the Arabs weave the same matting to roof their huts and use the same pitch to staunch their leaking boats.
(4). On one I saw the foot print of a large dog, made, I suppose when the clay was still soft.
(5). The tower or temple stood in three stages superimposed on one another. From its summit the vast desert lay exposed in all its silent grandeur. The view was superb. The plain seemed more like an ocean than ever; the low dis-
*Gen. XI, 3.