Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/172

156 156 THE PLAINS OF THE JORDAN.

The following altitudes define the variations in height which take place in the Plain of Beisan. On the north side of the plain, at the confluence of the Nahr el Jalud with the Jordan, the Zor may be reckoned from collateral observa- tions, in the absence of any on the spot, to be 930 feet below sea level. At the junction of Wady Maleh with the Jordan on the south of the plain, the Zor is 1,060 feet below sea level. The altitudes that have been observed in the Ghor, or the first step above the Zor, range from 850 to 685 feet below sea level. The altitudes on the edge of the second step upwards, rise from 426 to 322 feet below sea level. At 'Ain Tub'aun, in the Valley of Jezreel, nine miles west of the edge of the second slope, the altitude is 120 feet below sea level ; and at the head of the valley, on the edge of the plain of Megiddo, about four miles from 'Ain Tub'aun, the altitude may be reckoned at 240 feet above the sea. The total fall from the eastern edge of the Plain of Megiddo to the Jordan, at the junction of Nahr el Jalud, is 1,170 feet ; the distance being 15 miles. The fall is therefore at the rate of 78 feet per mile, measured in a direct line.

The hydrography of the Plain of Beisan, is obscured by the abundance of irrigation channels, spread nearly all over the upper and lower terraces. These unhappily now serve to denote present waste, and also the high development of productive industry in these regions in former times, together with the inducements thereto, which the soil and climate offer, in combination with a well directed artificial irrigation, which the cultivators themselves appear to understand, much better than theoretical engineers, whose tendencies are too one-sided, too much bent upon the works themselves, and too little identified with the varying incidents that must be met by the cultivator himself from day to day. Such appears to be the explanation of failures that have too often followed great irrigation works by professional Europeans in India, and the reflection suggested by such examples as this great irrigated plain, is, that native talent and administration under the oversight of supreme European governments, is the proper