'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [‎16] (25/568)

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16 BOUNDARIES AND PHYSICAL FEATURES
about 35 miles W. of Kerbela. and has an area of about 50 square
miles. Rahaliyeh is about 20 miles farther north ; it is much less
productive than Shifatheh.
Upper Mesopotamia and
This division includes (a) the upper plain-country of the JezTreh
(' the Island') lying between the middle Euphrates and the middle
Tigris, together with the troughs of those rivers bounding it on the
west and east, (b)the plains E. of the middle Tigris, (c) the hill-
country of southern and central Kurdistan from the Sirwan (upper
Diyaleh) valley to the southern shore of Lake Van, the hill-
country lying between the northern end of the JezTreh plains and
the edge of the Armenian plateau, together with the upland plain
of Diarbekr, and (e) the fringe of the Syrian Desert adjoining the
middle Euphrates valley on the west.
(a) The Plains between the Middle —-
Between the southern border of the hill-country (about lat. 37°-
37° 20' N.) and the northern edge of the alluvium of Irak, the plains
of the Jezlreh contain about 48,000 square miles. They are generally
more or less undulating, though they contain some wide expanses
of flat country. Here and there they are traversed by ranges of hills
running from east to west or from south-east to north-west. Most
of these are quite low, but the Jebel Sinjar, a line of basalt hills
W. of Mosul, rises to some 3,000 feet above the surrounding country.
The surface of the plains is open and treeless.
In the northern Jezlreh numerous stream-beds run down into the
plain from the hills, and, though most of these carry little or no
water in their lower courses during the summer and early autumn,
they help to form the considerable perennial rivers of the Khabur
and Belikh, which flow into the Euphrates. Much of the northern
Jezlreh has a good soil (e. g. its western part is covered with a brown
humus from the Qarajeh Dagh), and large areas could be brought
under cultivation by means of irrigation-works. Before the present
war, cultivation, though on the increase, was practically confined to
certain districts on or near the edges of the plain and to a few areas
in the interior where the water-supply was specially plentiful.
Insecurity, as well as lack of water, helped to check agricultural
development. Great tracts of the northern Jezlreh are covered with
rich grass in spring.
South of the Jebel Sinjar and the lower Khabur the plain becomes
increasingly arid, and towards its lower end turns to a hard desert,
the surface of which is composed of gravel, gypsum, marl, borax, or