Except in the extreme south, the rainfall is small and the air
dry. The heat in summer is intense, while bitterly cold northern
blasts sweep the plain in winter. Whirlwinds are not uncommon;
and, in the intervals of the periodical inundations, the fine,
dry, powdery soil is swept, even by moderate breezes, into
stifling clouds, or rather fogs, of dust. Low inequalities,
elevations here and depressions there, diversify the surface of
the alluvial region. The latter are occupied by enormous
marshes, while the former support the permanent dwellings of the
present scanty and miserable population.
In antiquity, so long as the canalisation of the country was
properly carried out, the fertility of the alluvial plain
enabled great and prosperous nations to have their home in the
Euphrates valley. Its abundant clay furnished the materials for
the masses of sun-dried and burnt bricks, the remains of which,
in the shape of huge artificial mounds, still testify to both
the magnitude and the industry of the population, thousands of
years ago. Good cement is plentiful, while the bitumen, which
wells from the rocks at Hit and elsewhere, not only answers the
same purpose, but is used to this day, as it was in Hasisadra's
time, to pay the inside and the outside of boats.
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