the ancient Is, a town of Asiatic Turkey, pashalic of Baghdad, on the W. bank of the Euphrates, in N. Lat. 33° 43', E. Long. 42° 27'. It contains about 1500 houses, chiefly of clay, one or two storeys in height. The streets are narrow, dirty, and frequently steep, rising one above another along the side of the hill on which the town stands. A graceful minaret and some tombs are the only structures worthy of notice. The never-failing fountains of bitumen still produce that substance as plentifully as when old Babylon was built. The inhabitants are employed in boat-building, and in the preparing of wool, bitumen, naphtha, and salt.