Norwich bulletin., 1921-09-09
lrak: Which May Be Worlds Baby
 Nation.

member to the family of nations-the Kingdom of Irak, to function under a British Mandate,-is mentioned in recent dispa atches from London. How this new country is in reality one of the oldest and most historic patches of the earth's surface is told in the following bulletin from the Washington, D. C., headquarters of the National Geographic Society.
 "Irak has existed as a geographical name or ages" says the bulletin, "but in recent centuries it has had little more official sanction than Manhattan for the American metropolis or Frisco for a thriving Pacific port. Yet it covers more or less indefinitely a reg ion known, and often famous, in every age of man from the dawn of tradition to the present-the fertile plain of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. where the Garden of Eden is supposed by many students to have been situ- ated, and where the first weak root lets sprouted that have grown into the worldwide civilization of today. Strip Irak of it's alias; call it Babylon - Ninevah - Mesopotamia, and it is known to every school child.
 ITO gain an idea of what wonderful development can be brought about in Mesopotamia one need only look into the past At the beignning of history the plain Of the Tigris and Euphrates was a garden spot teeming with a ! well-fed and wealthy people. If there l was a grandeur that was Greece and | a glory that was Rome there was as l truly a splndor that was Babylon. And | the splendor of Babylon was made possible six thousand years ago largely | by the wealth that sprang from the | intensive cultivation of the river plain under a gigantic system of irrigation which even the most ambitious modern | systems probably have failed in many ways to surpass.
 Great canals crossed the region be- | tween the rivers and ran for miles on the outer sides, while smaller canals spread the water to every corner of the l country. Some of these ancient canals 1 were practically artificial rivers with | two and three parallel channls, the re-
 mains of which may be traced today 1 for scares of miles. Watered by these l countless streams, nearly very square foot of the country produced it's crops
 of dates, figs, grain and other products
 and the population was many times that of today.
 "Babylon's agricultural Utopia was
 not a short-lived affair, but continued
 
 period which has passed since white
 men settled in America. The country
 throve with only minor interruptions
 under Babylonians, Assyrians, Chal-
 deans Greeks and Romans. But al-
 ways the settled civilization Of tho
 agriculturists was threatened by the
 turbulent hill people to the north ant Feast. Finally the Partehians captured
 the country and were followed by thu
 Persians. Under these more barbar.
 ous rulers the great irrigation systems even then much less efficient than dur.
 ing the golden age of Babylon, rapidl,
 deteriorated.
 Under the Abbassid Caliphs. witt a combination of Arabic and Persian . culture, Bagdad was founded on tn . Tigris in the very center of the rive
 plain-the splendid, gay, wicked Bag dad of the Arabian Nights. Mesopo tamia's prosperity, though much less 3 was still relatively great, and Bagda, . was for awhile the metropolis of tR 3 world, it's inhabitants at one tir/ 5 numbering 2,000,000 souls.
 When the Turks got possession O ) the Caliphate and carried its seat O
 to the west Bagdad withered; an
 under Turkish rule the Tigris an
 Euphrates valley entered it's darkes s period. The few canals that has con r tinued to function properly joine 2 those that long before had fallen int T l disrepair, becoming clogged or break = ing their banks and causing flood 0 Much of the incomparably fertile so
 became and has remained until toda t bare plain or oozy swamp. Only t small percentage of the rich valley ha :. for generations produced any crops. }. After the Young Turks came int - power in 1908 reclamation work wa < undertaken in the Tigris and Euphratt ,. plain and some headway was mad l. Since the British occupied Bagdad s 1917 this work has been carried muc
 farther. An appreciable acreage hs
 been drained, and dams and cana
 have been constructed. A railroad hs " been built from Bagdad to Basara, u d port near the Persian Gulf, a distanS Y of several hundred miles; and anoth' l. line has been laid up the Tigris ha " way to Mosul. Connection with u 0 Constantinople-to o-Bagdad (once u l: 'Berlin-to-B gdad) railway will prol q ably be effected in the near future. Tt is planned under the new Ars
 state and the mandate to continue u
 work of rejuvenating the country's al
 cient irrigation system. But there $ a Herculean task to be accomplish. 'e before The Garden Of Eden bloom T. again. It was estimated before Il h World War that the ambitious proje It of the Turks to reclaim $500, 900 acr e would cost s130, ,00O, 900. The total ar,
 that might be irrigated is placed
 about 12,500,00o acres.7
 RESTORING BLACK WALNUT