the country
they must be employed again, of course with the increased efficiency of
modern apparatus.(2) But while the Babylonians succeeded in controlling
the Euphrates, the Tigris was never really tamed,(3) and whenever it
burst its right bank the southern plains were devastated. We could not
have more suitable soil for the growth of a Deluge story.

(1) Baghdad, though 300 miles by crow-fly from the sea and
500 by river, is only 120 ft. above sea-level.

(2) The Babylonians controlled the Euphrates, and at the
same time provided against its time of "low supply", by
escapes into two depressions in the western desert to the
NW. of Babylon, known to-day as the Habbaniyah and Abu Dis
depressions, which lie S. of the modern town of Ramadi and
N. of Kerbela. That these depressions were actually used as
reservoirs in antiquity is proved by the presence along
their edges of thick beds of Euphrates shells. In addition
to canals and escapes, the Babylonian system included well-
constructed dikes protected by brushwood. By cutting an
eight-mile channel through a low hill between the Habbaniyah
and Abu Dis depressions and by building a short dam 50 ft.
high across the latter's narrow outlet, Sir William
Willcocks estimates that a reservoir could be obtained
holding eighteen milliards of tons of water. See his work
_The Irrigations of Mesopotamia_ (E. and F. N. Spon, 1911),
_Geographical Journal_, Vol. XL, No. 2 (Aug., 1912), pp. 129
ff., and the articles in _The Near East_ cited on p. 97, n.
1, and p. 98, n. 2. Sir William Willcocks's volume and
subsequent papers form the best introduction to the study of
Babylonian Deluge tradition on its material side.

(3) Their works carried out on the Tigris were effective for
irrigation; but the Babylonians never succeeded in
controlling its floods as they did those of the Euphrates. A
massive earthen dam, the remains of which are still known as
"Nimrod's Dam", was thrown across the Tigris above the point
where it entered its delta; this served to turn the river
over hard conglomerate rock and kept it at a high level so
that it could irrigate the country on both banks. Above the
dam were the heads of the later Nahrwan Canal, a great
stream 400 ft. wide and 17 ft. deep, which supplied the
country east of the river. The