THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1599, 16 November 1912, Page 11

THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

ON THE UPPER EUPHRATES. ' Every, part of the Euphrates delta, from Anah and Hitt to the Persian' Gulf, lias at some time or the other, been claimed as the authentic site of thje Garden of Jsden of the Book.of Genesis, but according to the "New York World" the latest claimant to a discovery of the site has clinched the matter for all time. Sir William iWilcocks, one of the world's loading authorities on irrigation, has spent three, years in. the Euphrates delta, planning an irrigation 6c'heme for the Turkish Government, and he states that in all the delta there is only one place where _a garden could possibly have existed in the absence of locks and: protective dykes, - and the Garden of Eden, if it/existed at this place in the form of an cichard must have been artificially irrigated. The garden, must have been near an outcrop of hard rock at Anah, up-stream; from: Hitt, on the Upper Euphrates. Even in its present unirrigated condition, though unsuited for cultivation, the Garden of Eden is by no means a lesert. There are wide stretches of clover, out of which rise closely planted stretches of date palms, sheltering the ground from the cold of winter and the heat of summer. From palm to-palm "are festooned-luxuri-. ant vijucs, from which hang rich clusters of purple grapes. The soil is fertile end. the climate eminently suited to fruit gardening. From date palms tnd oitnges to peaches and plums, every fmit cculd be profitably cultivated. The extraordinarily dry heat of the summer makes the district a trying one for the European i to live in, arid the few Ar»b3 who live I there told Sir William Wilcncks that_any weaklings among them wer» noon, killed off. Sir William proposes to utilis® the Garden of Eden cits us n fruit-growing area, and he has also expressed njmself that by th# construction of protective works and a .network of watercourses the valley of the Euphrates will' be saved from the disastrous effects of the parching sun in summer and . from inundations in winter and made into a smiling, fertile land. Should the present war result in the ejection of the Turk from Europe, Sir William Wilcock's work may provide a new territory for the vanquished Mussulman.