a river universally allowed to take its rise in Armenia Major; but in what particular spot, or in what direction it afterwards shapes its course, there is the greatest disagreement. Strabo says, that the Euphrates rises in Mount Abus, which he joins with, or accounts a part of, Mount Taurus; that its beginning is on the north side of Mount Taurus; and that running, first westward through Armenia, then striking off to the south, it forces its way through the mountain; and thus it rises in the south of Armenia, Mount Taurus being the boundary on that side; and runs through its south part, quite to Cappadocia, conterminous with Armenia Minor; or quite to this last, or to its south limit; to reach which, it must bend its west course a little north; because Taurus, from which it rose, lies lower, or more to the south, and almost parallel with Melitene: and that then it turns to the south, in order Euphrates to break through Taurus, and escape to Syria; and then take a new bend to Babylon. To this account of Strabo, Pliny runs quite counter; adverting eye-witnesses, who carry the Euphrates from north to south in a right line, till it meets Mount Taurus; placing the springs to the east, as Strabo does; whence, he says, it runs in a long course westward, before it bends south, and that it rises not from Mount Taurus, but far to the north of it; and he makes it run straight west from its rise, then turn south spontaneously, without any interfering obstacle, in a manner quite different from Strabo, Mela, and others, who make Taurus the cause of this turn. The Euphrates naturally divides into two channels, one through Babylon, and the other through Seleucia, besides the several artificial cuts made between it and the Tigris about Babylon: and these cuts or trenches are what the Psalmist calls the rivers of Babylon, on the willows of which the captives hung their harps. It is probable, that the Euphrates naturally poured into the sea at one particular mouth, before these cuts were made. A thing appearing so evident to the ancients, that Pliny has set down the distance between the mouths of the Euphrates and the Tigris; and he says, some made it 25, and others 74 miles; but that the Euphrates being for a long time back intercepted in its course by cuts, made for watering the fields, only the branch called the Positigris fell into the sea, the rest of it into the Tigris, and both together into the Persian gulf. Overflowing the country through which it runs, at stated times of the year, like the Nile, it renders it fertile.