'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎225v] (455/610)

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B.—Inland Waterways.
No Inland waterways of importance exist in this area.
A few rivers admit of navigation by small native river craft
for the last few miles of their course through the plains of Mazan-
daran and Gilan. Their mouths are all very shallow owing
to sand bars. Such rivers are the Babul, from Barfarush to
Meshed-i-Sar, the Langarud from near Lahijan via Langarud
to Chamkhaleh, which has considerable traffic, and the Safid
Rud. The Babul and Langarud do not average more than
3 to 4 feet in depth. They are both sluggish. The Safid Bud
becomes navigable below Imamzadeh Hashim, but is very swift
until a short distance below Kisom ferry on the RashGLahijan
road.
A mile below Kisom two branches of the river unite andj
during the high water season in May the river was 150 yards
wide, 10 ' to 12 ' deep in the middle with an average depth from
bank to bank of about 3£'. The bed is stone and shingle with
a deposit of alluvial mud.
There are a few rapids below the junction of these two
branches, but the river soon becomes more placid and 8 miles
down stream of Kisom at 1 2 Astaneh it has contracted to a
width of 80 yards, is 10 ' to 12 ' deep, and flows through woods
between high earth banks with a steady current flowing at
about 6 miles per hour. These features continue unchanged
down to its mouth at Hasan Kiade, where it has widened to*
about 120 yards.
In these lower reaches the river has frequently changed its
course and caused considerable damage. It has recently
formed a new channel from three miles below Astaneh and
enters the Caspian some 2 miles West of its former mouth by
Lionosoff’s fishery station.
The volume of the river diminishes greatly in the autumn,
but from 3 or 4 miles below Kisom to Hasan Kiade it is probably
5' or 6 ' deep.
A 3 few boats with rice and local produce are floated down-
and laboriously towed and poled back upstream.
1 The river forks at Konasan, two ‘ faxsakhs ’ upstream of Kisom.
8 A large village of 400 houses. There are no other villages of consequencs-
between Kisom and Kasan Kiade, a distance of about 20 miles.
3 Ko statistics of the number of boats is available. Fifty is probably a maxi--
mum estimate.