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Still proceeding on our way, we find that the orange sandstone is cut in two by a group of firm, calcareous strata, and the lower bed is underlaid by soft, gypsiferous shales. Sometimes the upper homogeneous bed is a smooth, vertical wall, but usually it is carved with mounds, with gently meandering valley lines.
Naturally Babylonia is very much more fertile than the greater part of Assyria, which being elevated above the courses of the rivers, and possessing a saline and gypsiferous soil, tends, in the absence of a sufficient water supply, to become a bare and arid desert.
The soil too is often gypsiferous, and its salt and nitrous exudations destroy vegetation; while at the same time the streams and springs are from the same cause for the most part brackish and unpalatable. Volcanic action probably did not cease in the region very much, if at all, before the historical period.
The water of the lake is fresh and sweet, so long as it communicates with the Euphrates; when the communication is cut off it becomes very unpalatable, and those who dwell in the vicinity are no longer able to drink it. This result is attributed to the connection of the lake with rocks of the gypsiferous series.
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