Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/794

778 EUPHRATES EUPOLIS near the village of Diyadin, and not far from Mt. Ararat. The former, or Northern Eu- phrates, has the name of Frat from the first, but is known also as the Kara-su (Black river) ; the latter, or Southern Euphrates, is not called the Frat, but the Murad Chai, though in reality the main river. Both branches flow mainly W. S. W. and meet at Kieban-Maaden, about lat. 38 50' N. and Ion. 38 40' E., after a course of respectively 270 and 400 m. The combined stream is here 360 ft. wide, rapid, and very deep. It flows a winding course, mostly S. and S. W., traversing a chain of Mt. Taurus, till it reaches the vicinity of Nizib, where it is deflected S. E., keeps its way with- out deviation till near its junction with the Tigris, and the united rivers fall, under the name Shat-el-Arab, into the Persian gulf. Its total length is about 1,800 m., its average breadth about 200 yards, and its depth from 12 to 30 ft. The upper part of its course lies amid lofty mountains, and near the village of Pashtash it plunges through a gorge formed by precipices more than 1,000 ft. in height, and so narrow that it is bridged at the top. It then enters the plains of western and south- ern Mesopotamia, where the swiftness of its current is diminished, and where in ancient times numerous canals extended from its banks to irrigate the neighboring country. It ex- tricates itself from the marshes of Lemlun just before reaching Korna, the point of its union with the Tigris. It is navigable both below and above the cataracts-which it forms in the passes of the Taurus, though numerous islands, shallows, and rapids make its navigation in many places difficult. Its waters are subject to periodical increase from the melting of the snow on the mountains along the upper part of its course, and its inundations were anciently of great advantage to the agriculture of the level districts through which it passes. Under the misrule of the Turks, however, the canals and embankments which regulated the inunda- tions have been neglected. The Euphrates is linked with the most important events in an- cient history. It is mentioned in the Bible as one of the four rivers of the garden of Eden, and is often named the great river. On its banks stood the city of Babylon, which was for ages not only the capital of great empires, but also one of the greatest commercial em- poriums of the world. Indian and Egyptian merchandise destined for Babylon was trans- shipped in the port of Gerrha, now Katif, in the Persian gulf, from the large vessels that had made the sea voyage into smaller ones fit for the navigation of the river. Nebuchadnez- zar, however, had locks constructed, and dikes rajsed to contain the waters of the Shat-el- Arab, which allowed vessels of heavy burden to ascend the Euphrates as far as Babylon. It was for a long time the western boundary of the Parthian and the eastern boundary of the Roman empire. The army of Necho was defeated on its banks by Nebuchadnezzar at Circesium (Carchemish) ; Cyrus the Younger and Crassus perished after crossing it, the one at Cunaxa, the other at Carrhee ; Alexander crossed it at Thapsacus ; Trajan and Severus descended it in fleets built in upper Mesopota- mia. In recent times the English have tried to use it as their path of communication with India. For this purpose an expedition was sent from England under command of Col. Chesney, which in 1836 descended the river from Bir and surveyed 509 m. of its course. The stearn navigation of the Euphrates, from its mouth to Bir, has since become of some impor- tance. The electric telegraph line from Bag- dad to the Persian gulf, which was opened in 1865, skirts the Euphrates as well as the Tigris. It is a singular fact concerning the Euphrates that several thousand years ago the waters do not seem to have reached the sea at all, but were lost in marshes or consumed by irriga- tion, which was practised on an immense scale under the Babylonian and Assyrian sovereigns. It is certain that at a much later period the Tigris and Euphrates flowed into the sea by distinct channels. Their junction is supposed to have taken place more than 2,000 years ago. EUPHUISM (Gr. etywfa, elegant), an affected style of speech which distinguished the con- versation and writings of many of the wits at the court of Queen Elizabeth. The name and the style were derived from the "Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit" (1580), and the "Euphues and his England" (1581), of John Lilly, of which Anthony & Wood said : " Our nation is indebted for a new English in them, which the flower of the youth thereof learned." The style of these once famed books, which became the model of the wits and gallants of the time, and was almost regarded as a test of courtly breeding, was characterized by smoothness and verbal elegance, and chiefly by fantastic simi- les and illustrations formed by attributing fan- ciful and fabulous properties to animals, vege- tables, and minerals. Supported by fashion- able sanction, Lilly was for a time esteemed the rival of Demosthenes and Cicero in " all the partes of rhetoricke, in fitte phrases, in pithy sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speech." But the applause was not universal. Euphuism is ridiculed in Marston's comedy of "What You Will" and Ben Jonson's "Cyn- thia's Revels," and is thought to be referred to in the style of Don Armado in Shakespeare's " Love's Labor's Lost." Sir Walter Scott in his "Monastery" makes Sir Piercie Shafton " parley euphuism." EUPOLIS, one of the six Greek comic poets whom the grammarians of the school of Alex- andria judged worthy of a place in their canon, born about 446, died about 411 B. C. He be- longed to the old comedy, was a disciple of Cratinus, and composed 17 pieces, seven of which were crowned. He was reputed supe- rior to Aristophanes in elegance, and in bittef and personal jests was the rival of Cratinus. Among the objects of his satire were Alcibia-