Page 53 - Gulf Precis (VII)_Neat

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18. Botween group 1 and group 2 a email ferry-boat now plies, but has difficulty, in
avoiding tho shallows and rooks.
14. No. 8 group is 200 yards bolow group 2. It is of low flattish rock and causes rapids.
By below is meant down-9trcnm.
15. No. 4 group is 200 yards bolow No. 3 j it is of tho same character as No. 8 ; below
this group an island has been formed of silt (marked 1, 2 on plan) and it divides the river.
This island oxtonds down-stream over and beyond group 5.
10. No. 5 group causes rapids in tho two branchos, formod by the island above mentioned,
throughout their whole width.
17. Below group 5 tho river is narrowed by rocks to a width of 165 yards. Here it
becomes deep, and from this point to its mouth is easily navigable by large boats.
19. It would, no doubt, not bo difficult to blow out passages in tho above-named ridges
of sandstone and leavo an uninterrupted way for the rivor, but it is impossible to predict what I
offect thus letting looso the pent up water of tho Upper Karun would have on the whole bed of
the river.
. 19. I caloulote, roughly, that from the narrows down-stream to tho island abovo group
No. 1 the river falls from 8 to 10 feet. It may he oonceived what a torrent would How from
No. 1 were & free ohannol cut for tho water from it to the narrows.
20. The whole of the rocks, oto., within the present limits of the river banks aro liable
to be swept by floods; therefore, supposing a canal were cut in tho rock in the direction shown
in dotted lines on plan which would be the least expensive way as regards excavation, yet the
difficulty of protecting the lock gates from damage at tho up-stream end and the difficulty and
cost of protecting the canal with masonry from being silted up by the spill of the river in
flood time, would, I think, make this plan inadmissible; besides more than two locks would bo
required.
21. Tho beat plan, in my opinion, would be to dig a canal from tho narrows at (A) to the
pool above Ahwaz at (B) following the red lino on plan. Two locks would be required, viz., one
at A and one at B, and no doubt sandstone would be met with for the greater part of the
length (2,850 yards), yet onco tho work executed, these samo sandstone walls to the canal
would be of the greatest benefit, and would never be a cause of e/pnnse like the banks of most
navigable waterways. Again tho sandstono would form excellent walls to tho locks and greatly
lessen the cost of their construction, as tho locks could be placed wherever tho rock was best
and need not necessarily be at A or B.
22. Between A and B along the red line shown on plan, there would probably never be
more than 85 feet of excavation required even if the canal wero to be 8 feot deep.
28. As a temporary measuro a wharf might be constructed on piles in tho pool at A and
in tho still water below the narrows at B, where native boats aro now in the habit of lying,
and these two points bo connected by means of a tramway which could be laid with very little
labour, the ground being nearly level and goods trans-shipped thus from the lower to the upper
river or vice vend. With this tramway irrigation canals would not bo, interfered with if led
from either side of the river above No. 1 group, but even with the locks at work there would
be a very small waste of water unless tho traffic became very great. However thore is enough
good ground about Shuster to be developed without irrigating that below the bund for maay
a year.

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