RANCOIS LENORMANT (Maisonneuve, 1871, 8vo.).

[2] _The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World; or, The
History, Geography, and Antiquities of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media,
and Persia. Collected and Illustrated from Ancient and Modern Sources_, by
GEORGE RAWLINSON. Fourth edition, 3 vols., 8vo., with Maps and
Illustrations (Murray, 1879).

[3] HUMBOLDT, _Aspects of Nature_, vol. i. pp. 77, 78.--R.

[4] HERODOTUS, ii. 5.

[5] LOFTUS'S _Chaldaea and Susiana_, p. 282.--R.

[6] See STRABO, xvi. 1, Sec. 6; PLINY, H.N. vi. 28; PTOLEMY, v. 20; BEROSUS,
pp. 28, 29.--R.

[7] Ross came to the end of the alluvium and the commencement of the
secondary formation in lat. 34 deg., long. 44 deg. (_Journal of Geographical
Society_, vol. ix. p. 446). Similarly, Captain Lynch found the bed of the
Tigris change from pebbles to mere alluvium near Khan Iholigch, a little
above its confluence with the Aahun (_Ib._ p. 472). For the point where the
Euphrates enters on the alluvium, see Fraser's _Assyria and Mesopotamia_,
p. 27.--R.

[8] RAWLINSON. _The Five Great Monarchies_, &c., vol. i., pp. 1-4. As to
the name and boundaries of Chaldaea, see also GUIGNAUT, _La Chaldee et les
Chaldeens_, in the _Encyclopedie Moderne_, vol. viii.

[9] HERODOTUS, i. 106, 192; iii. 92.

[10] PLINY, _Nat. Hist._ vi. 26.

[11] STRABO, xvi. i. Sec. 1.

[12] _Genesis_ xi. 28 and 31; _Isaiah_ xlvii. 1; xiii. 19, &c.; DIODORUS
ii. 17; PLINY, _Nat. Hist._ vi. 26; the Greek translators of the Bible
rendered the Hebrew term Khasdim by Chaldaioi; both forms seem to be
derived from the same primitive word.

[13] STRABO, xvi. i. 1, 2, 3.

[14] LAYARD, _Nineveh and its Remains_, vol. i. pp. 312, 315;
_Discoveries_, p. 245.

[15] RAWLINSON, _Five Great Monarchies_, vol. i. pp. 4, 5.

[16] LOFTUS, in the _Journal of the Geographical Society_, vol. xxvi. p.
142; _Ib._, Sir HENRY RAWLINSON, vol. xxvii. p. 186.

[17] MASPERO, _Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient_, p. 137.

Sec. 2.--_Nature in the Basin of the Euphrates and Tigris._

The inundation of the Nile gives renewed life every year to those plains of
Egypt which it has slowly formed, and so it is with the Tigris and
Euphrates. Lower Mesopotamia is entirely their creation, and if the time
were to come when their vivifying streams were no longer to irrigate its
surface, it would very soon be changed into a monotonous and melancholy
desert. It hardly ever rains in Chaldaea.[18] Th