tide ascended, admits the same etymology; Vincent thinks that the appellation may be derived from Pasa or Phasa, signifying eastern or north-eastern; and Falconer (Notes to Strabo) reads Parsitigris, or Persian Tigris.

The Pasitigris, according to Arrian, ("Hist. Indica," xl.,) and "Anabasis," iii. 17, separated the Uxii from the Susians or Kissei. That the town, and now village of Hawáz, may have been in the remote days of the conquests of the son of Philip, also a village under the name of Aginis, there is all the probability of a nearly conclusive evidence. Strabo's account of a place of commerce, on the Susian lake, from whence goods were transported by land 800 stadia, or 50 miles, to Sús, agrees also in a most remarkable manner with the identification as derived from Nearchus. The distances are correct; and at the present Hawáz there are rocks which prevented goods being taken up the river. These remnants, are in the present day part artificial and part natural; but it is probable that the τους κατορακτας σπιτηδες γεμενους could scarcely mean purposely constructed, although Mr. Long has read it as such. Arrian also uses the same expression.

Both Rennell and Vincent have confounded Hawáz on the Karún with Hawísah on the Keráh. They are both Arabic forms of the same root, Húz, "people," or "bodies of men," whence Hawáz, and its diminutive Hawísah, which means a small collection of people. Sir Harford Jones says, "Ahouáz Ahwáz, or Havisa, more noticed by Oriental writers than Shúster." The búnd across the river was called Hindús; Azád-úd-Dúlet, built a noble mosque, the ruins of which are simply indicated by a mound. Kinneir supposes also the existence of a palace

of Artabanes. Mignan, who was one of the few Europeans who have visited the Karún, mistook the rocks and hills of Hawáz for mounds of ruin*. It was under the earlier Khalifs of the house of Abbas, that it obtained its highest prosperity, until it revolted under Ali Ibn Muhammed, surnamed Prince of the Zangíz. From this moment the power and prosperity of the city fell, and the place gradually sank to its present degradation. The country around was celebrated for its sugar plantations.

Sáblah, or Zablá, is a deserted fort and village, inhabited when the waters of the Karún flowed by their old bed. Sheïk Suleiman constructed a búnd across the river, to turn the waters into their old channel, and fertilize Dorákstán, but the attempt failed. It was the interval between Sáblah and the Bahamshír, which was formerly called the Haffár canal, and not the Mo'ammerah channel, for the Djihan Númá expressly says that this channel, which now drains the Karún, was four parasangas (12 miles) in length.

To resume, then, the tendency of the evidence collected in the foregoing pages, and compared with data historically obtained, is to make it appear that, that evidence is in favour of the identity of the river of Hór-Kúb, with Gyndes of Herodotus; of the Ab-i-Zál, and the river of Díz, with Khoaspes and Eulæus; both the Hór-Kúb and

* Among innumerable quotations to this effect that might be made, I select the following. "Let me not be supposed to exaggerate, when I assert, that these piles of ruin, irregular, craggy, and in many places inaccessible, rival in appearance the Baktíyarí."-p. 308. “I could not find any person who had been to the end of these ruins; according to the inhabitants, their extent would occupy a journey of two months." -p. 303.

the Ab-i-Zál flowing into Eulæus, and Eulæus into a lake which emptied itself into the sea by Pasitigris.

Of the further identity of Sús and Susa, or Shúshán ; of that of the Karún with the Kopratas; of the Shútïte or Múshikrán with the Ab-i-Shúster; the last uniting with the river of Hassmaníyah at Búnd-i-Kíl, to form the Karún, or Pasitigris, which formerly also received the waters of the Shawúr, and beyond the lake, those of Eulæus.

It is not to be omitted, however, that Major Rawlinson, who has personally surveyed the country for a considerable extent, and from whom much is to be expected on the comparative and descriptive geography of these interesting districts, considers the westerly tributary at Búnd-i-Kíl, to be the river of Díz, which corresponds also with the information obtained by the Expedition when at Búnd-i-Kíl. The question is certainly very far from satisfactorily settled yet, and this chapter remains the most theoretical in the work.

RESEARCHES ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE HEAD OF THE PERSIAN GULF.

THE researches instituted into the nature of the formations at the northern extremity, or head of the Persian Gulf, were made with a view to establish the circumscription of the alluvial Basin of the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Karún, or the Delta of Susiana, or of Khusístán.

This inquiry presented the double interest of furnishing new materials in that branch of geology, which more particularly concerns the study of recent formations, and also of illustrating some questions of importance in historical geography.

The examination afforded everywhere a great uniformity of characters, both in what regarded the nature and origin of the formations, their structure and composition, and also the fossils which they contained imbedded in them.

The utmost variety presented, were sandstone conglomerates, sandstones, calcareous sandstones, sands, shelly beds, and beds of aggregated polypiferous lithophytes. Of these, the calcareous sandstones were by far the most predominant.

All these deposits belong to the Pliocene group of the supra-cretaceous rocks, and all contain fossils which for the most part are met with at the present day in the waters of the neighbouring Gulf, and yet these deposits are found to present among themselves evidences of distinct periods of elevation.

The sandstone conglomerates are alone non-fossiliferous They occur in thin slaty beds, on the western side of the

island of Khárij, reposing sometimes on shelly sands, unconformable to the older calcareous sandstone, and comparable to the breccias with pottery (Ceramic formations) of the coast of Karamania, or the shelly deposits raised by earthquakes on the coast of Chili, and described by Dr. Meyen, and by Mr. Darwin.

Another formation, of greater interest, which is met with on the western coast of Khárij, and which is also unconformable to the older Pliocene rocks of the island, consists of three kinds of deposits:

Upper Beds.-Calcareous conglomerates, with congeries of shells. Middle Beds.-Compact calcareous sandstone, very shelly. Lower Beds.-Lithophytic or coral rock. An uniform aggregate of polypiferous lithophytes belonging to the family of Madrepores, and including the genera Caryophillæ, Madrepora, Astrea, and Meandrina.

If this arrangement is compared with the natural historical features of the adjacent shore and sea, we obtain the following results:

SHORE. Maritime Sands, with shells and fragments of lithophytes, chiefly ground down and rounded by attrition. Maritime Sands included in the line of flood and of spring

tides. Some shells, lithophytes ground down into powder, and cementing to form a calcareous sandstone. WATER. Shallow Water.-Numerous shells and Echini. Some Crustaceæ, numerous Ascidiæ, and a few Actiniæ. Water of from three to four Fathoms, covered with a uniform growth of lithophytic Polypi in their various structures, the genera the same as above.

In the collections made for the Expedition, the identity of genera and species, more particularly in the conchiferous Mollusks, and lithophytic Polypi, has been illus