"كتيّب سوريا (بما في ذلك فلسطين). لندن: إدارة استخبارات الأركان البحرية، يونيو ١٩١٩" [ظ‎‎٢‎٤‎٢] (٧٣٨/٤٨٩)

478
SAMARIA (INCLUDING CARMEL)
sand, these dunes have become petrified and the stone is
much used locally for building purposes.
The crops of the plain are chiefly cereals, sesame, and
melons, with orange and other fruit plantations in the Jewish
colonies. Fat-tailed sheep in great numbers, black goats
and small red oxen find good grazing. In former times, many
spots along certain of the coastal streams were canalized for
irrigation, the surplus waters being drained off by artificial
cuttings through the solid rock of the dunes near the sea.
These ancient irrigatory systems have been destroyed and the
outlets are partly choked up so that extensive and unhealthy
swamps have formed in several places. Where Jewish
colonies have been established in the plain these swamps
have been partially drained and extensive groves of eucalyptus
trees planted.
For details of the section of the plain north of Sharon, see
Carmel p. 500, and for the description of the coastline of
Samaria see Judaea, p. 441 f.
Coastal Streams and Wadi Basins.
These streams form the outlets of the various intricate
wadi systems of the western slope of the Samarian highlands
and are here treated in order from south to north.
(1) The Nahr el-Fdliq. The basin, of which this short stream
is the outlet, is restricted to a small section of the maritime
plain lying between the village of Tireh and the coast; it
does not extend inland to the mountains. The basin extends
for about 10 miles along the coast, north and south of the
old harbour of Arsuf, and its greatest depth inland scarcely
exceeds 7 miles. The perennial stream, not more than
1J mile in length and only a few yards wide, drains a marshy
depression of considerable area known as Birket Ramadhan or
Basset el-Faliq situated east of the dunes through which
latter it runs in a deep narrow cutting in the calcareous
sandstone, 40 metres in length. The marsh is one of the largest
of its kind in Palestine ; aquatic birds are very numerous
in its vicinity. There is a belt of sand at the stream mouth.