Seleucia, besides the several artificial cuts made between it and the Tigris about Babylon; and these cuts or trenches seem to be 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 emptied itself into the sea at one mouth, before these cuts were made. Pliny, in stating the distance between the mouths of the Euphrates and the Tigris, says, some made it twenty-five and others seven 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 Pasitigris fell into the sea, the rest of it into the Tigris, and both together into the Persian Gulf.

Modern travellers also describe this celebrated iver as rising in the mountains of Armenia, from two principal sources. The first issues from a mountain in the vicinity of the towns of Bayazid and Diadin; the second is formed by the confluence of many streams from the mountains near Erzerum. These two streams, pursuing a westerly direction, unite near the town of Kebban in Mount Taurus, when the river flows chiefly to the south-west as far as Semisat. Here it would fall into the Mediterranean, if it were not turned into a south-east course by a high range of mountains in the neighbourhood. The Euphrates at Korna, about 130 miles from its mouth, is joined by the Tigris, and those two united streams, forming one of the noblest rivers in the east, fall into the gulf of Persia, about fifty miles south-east of Bassora.

The course of the Euphrates, before joining the Tigris, is about 1400 miles, and, adding 130 miles for the distance of the Tigris from the sea, its whole course will be upwards of 1500 miles. According to captain M. Kinneir, who wrote in 1808 from observation on the spot, the greatest increase of the Euphrates is in January, when it rises twelve perpendicular feet, and it continues to rise and fall till the end of May or the beginning of June. In the driest season it is navigable for boats of considerable burden as far as Shukashu, a village about a day's sail from the confluence of the Tigris. Above this point the tides of the Persian Gulf reach twenty or twenty-five miles, and the river is navigated during six months of the year, by flat-bottomed boats to Hibah. These boats are of the shape of a half moon, the ribs and planks roughly nailed together, and the outside covered with bitumen. The rudder is as large as the vessel, or nearly, and they have a mast and a sail. Thus provided they float down the stream, and they are dragged back again against the current. Herodotus mentions a circular sort of boats which were in use in ancient times for navigating the Euphrates; and boats of the same figure, and made of wicker-work, covered with bitumen, still ply upon this celebrated stream. In consequence of the periodical rise of the Euphrates from the melting of the snows in spring and summer, artificial canals and lakes were dug by the ancient inhabitants of Asia Minor, for the double purpose of protecting the contiguous plains froni inundation, and at the same time of preserving the superfluous waters for the irrigation of the soil. Of these

is the canal of Pallacopus, which was dug by the Babylonian kings. This canal had fallen into disrepair; but about the year 1793 it was partially cleaned by the nabob of Oude. It is cut from the Euphrates, and that part of it which holds water extends to within five miles of the city of Meshed Ali, or Nejiff. The remainder is nearly choked up with sand; but its course may be still traced to its termination in the Persian Gulf. The Bahr Nejiff, or sea of Nejiff, was also a work of great labor, and is of equal antiquity with the canal of Pallacopus. Captain Kinneir passed through the middle of it in his way from Samarat, or Semisat, and found it dry, with the exception of a few ravines and channels of water, near which the miserable inhabitants rear rice and vegetables. There are other canals, some of which are still in preservation, such as the Kerbela, at the extremity of which is the large and populous town of that name, and the canal of Hie, connecting the Euphrates and the Tigris, and navigable in spring for large boats: but the great works of art for protecting this country against the overflowing streams, and at the same time for preserving the water for fertilising the soil, have fallen into neglect and disrepair. The Euphrates is sometimes represented to flow into the Persian Gulf by a variety of channels; navigators commonly imagining that the seven streams, which fall into the Persian Gulf, all derive their origin from the common channel of the Euphrates. This, however, is not so. Only one of these streams is connected with the Euphrates, and this by an artificial canal, by means of which part of its waters flow into the channel of this river. But the great stream of the Euphrates is not divided, and it has no connexion with the other six channels which issue in the Persian Gulf.

EUPOLIS, an Armenian comic poet, who flourished about the 85th Olympiad. He took the freedom of the ancient comedy in lashing the vices of the people. He lost his life in a sea-fight between the Athenians and the Lacedemonians; and his fate was so much lamented that, after his death, it was enacted, that no poet should serve in the wars.

EURE, a river of France, which rises in the forest of Logny, near Pointgoin, in the department of Eure and Loire; passes by Courville, Chartres, Maintenon, Louviers, &c., and falls into the Seine above Pont de l'Arche.

EURE, a department of France, so named from the river which crosses it; bounded on the north by the department of the Lower Seine; on the east by that of the Oise; on the south by those of the Eure and Loire, and the Orne; and on the west by that of Calvados. It includes part of the late province of Normandy, and 422,000 inhabitants. It is a flat district, divided into the five arrondissements of Evreux (the capital), Louviers, Bernay, Andelys, and Port Audemen. The climate is very similar to that of England, though not altogether so humid or so changeable. chief produce is wheat, barley, oats, flax, and hemp; vines are not cultivated here: the common drink is cyder. The sheep pasturage is extensive; and the number of horses in the department is computed at 30,000. The forest land is com

The

puted to cover a surface of 200 000 acres; and here are several iron mines In the towns are manufactures of woollen, linen, and leather: the broad cloth of Louviers is very superior. Evreux is the capital.

EURE and LOIRE, a department of France, bounded on the north-west by that of the Eure; on the east by those of the Seine and Oise, and the Loiret; on the south by those of the Loiret, and the Loire and Cher; and on the west by those of the Sarte and the Orne. The rivers Eure and Loire run through it. It contains the ci-devant province of Beauce, which has been called the granary of Paris. This district is also flat, and is divided into the four arrondissements of Chartres, Nogent le Rotrou, Chateaudun, and Dreux; its population is 266,000, among whom are 3000 Protestants. The manufactures not important, being confined to coarse woollens, leather, paper, and pins; the last chiefly made at l'Aigle. The trade of the department consists in corn, cattle, fruit, and, to a small extent, in wine; the pasturage is very good. Chartres is the capital.

EVREMOND (Charles de St.), a miscellaneous French writer of noble family, was born at Denis le Guast in Normandy in 1613. He was educated for the law at Paris and Caen, but quitted it for the army, where he rose to the rank of captain, and distinguished himself in several battles. When the civil wars of France broke out the king made him a major-general; but, after the reduction of Guienne, he was sent to the Bastile for satirising Mazarin. On the death of the cardinal, a letter of St. Evremond was discovered which gave so much offence to the court, that he would again have been imprisoned, had he not made his retreat to Holland; from whence he came to England, where Charles II. gave him a pension of £300 a year. He died in London in 1703, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. His works consist of essays, letters, poems, and dramatic pieces, and have been printed in 2 vols. 4to. and 7 vols. 12mo. There is an English translation of some of them in 2 vols. 8vo.

EVREUX, an ancient town of France, the capital of the department of the Eure. The cathedral is handsome, and the trade consists in corn, cyder, and linen and woollen cloth. It has manufactories of cotton velvets and ticks. It is seated on the Iton, twenty-five miles south of Rouen, and sixty-five north-west of Paris. In the neighbourhood is the noble castle of Na

varre.

EURIPIDES, a celebrated Greek tragic poet, born about A.A.C. 468, in the isle of Salamis, on the day that Xerxes was defeated. He studied rhetoric under Prodicus, ethics under Socrates, and natural philosophy under Anaxagoras; but, at eighteen years of age, abandoned philosophy, for dramatic poetry. He used to shut himself up in a ca to compose his tragedies, which were so universally admired, that several of the soldiers of Nicias, after their defeat in Sicily, purchased their lives and liberties by reciting them; and Socrates himself set so high a value upon them, that they were the only tragedies he went to see performed. Euripides frequently intersperses through them severe reflections on the fair sex; whence he was called the woman

hater. He was, nevertheless, married: but the scandalous lives of his two wives drew upon him the raillery of Aristophanes, and other comic poets; which occasioned him to retire to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon. Here he was well received, and made, according to Solinus, minister of state to that prince. But a few years after, as he was walking in a wood in deep meditation, he accidently met with Archelaus's hounds, and was by them torn in pieces. Archelaus buried him with great magnificence; and the Athenians were so much afflicted at his death, that the whole city went into mourning. Of ninety-two tragedies, which he composed, only nineteen remain: the most valuable editions of which are those of Aldus, in 1503, 8vo. ; of Plantin in 1570, 16mo.; of Commelin in 1597, 8va.; of Paul Stephens in 1604, 4to.; and of Joshua Barnes in 1694, folio. Wodhull and Potter have translated them into English; and valuable criti cal editions of portions of them have been edited by Valckenaer, PORSON, Brunck, and Markland.

EURIPO, or EURIPUS, the celebrated channel which separates the island of Negropont from Livadia. Its greatest width is thirty-five miles; and at the town of Negropont, where it is crossed by a bridge, it is not much more than twenty paces. This strait presents a phenomenon, occasioned by the irregularity of its tides, which was remarked at a very early period. During the last two days of the moon the course of the water is periodical; but, when new moon arrivés, the water alternately ebbs and flows five, nine, and even twelve or fourteen times in the day. In this place Aristotle has been said to have drowned himself out of chagrin, for not being able to account for its wonders. Euripus afterwards became a general name for all straits, where the water is in great motion and agitation. The ancient circuses had their euripi, which were pits or ditches on each side of the course. The term was particularly applied by the Romans to three canals which encompassed the circus on three sides, and which were filled occasionally to represent naumachiæ or sea battles. They also called their smaller fountains or canals in their gardens euripi; and their largest, as cascades, &c., niles.

EVRON, a town in the department of the Mayenne, France, containing 4100 inhabitants. Seven miles E.N.E. of Laval, and thirteen S.S.E. of Mayenne.

EUROCLYDON, of supoc, the east wind, and vowy, a wave, is a species of wind, of which we have an account only in Acts xxvii. 14, and concerning the nature of which critics have been much divided. Bochart, Grotius, Bentley, and others substitute another reading, supported by the Alexandrian MS. and the Vulgate, viz. Eupavwv, or Euro-aquilo; but Mr. Bryant defends the common reading, and considers the Euroclydon, i. e. Eupos kλuzwv, as an east wind that causes a deep sea of vast inundation. Dr. Bentley supposes that the mariners in the ship, the voyage of which is recited in this passage, were Romans; but Mr. Bryant maintains that they were Greeks of Alexandria, and that the ship was an Alexandrian ship employed in the traff of carrying corn to Italy: and therefore, that the

mariners had a name in their own language for the particular typhonic or stormy wind here mentioned. He also shows, from the passage itself, that the tempestuous wind called Euroclydon beat, kar avrns, upon the island of Crete.

EUROPA, in fabulous history, a daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenicia and Telephassa. Jupiter became enamoured of her, and to seduce her, assumed the shape of a bull, and mingled with the herds of Agenor. Europa caressed

the beautiful animal; and at last had the courage to sit upon his back. The god retired toward the shore, crossed the sea, and carried Europa in safety to Crete; where, assuming his original shape, he declared his love. The nymph consented, and became mother of Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus. After this she married Asterius, king of Crete, who adopted her sons. Some suppose that Europa lived about A. A. C. 1552.

EUROPE, one of the four general or greater divisions of the world, called by the people of Asia Frankistan, is bounded on the north by the Frozen, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by the Mediterranean, which separates it from Africa; and on the east by the Archipelago, which divides it in part from Asia; as also by the Black Sea; then by the river Don, till it comes near the river Volga; then it is parted from Asia by this last, and afterwards by the river Oby. It is situated between long. 9° 35′ W., and 62° 25′ E., and between lat. 35° and 72° N.

:

The origin of the name of this important division of the earth is hid in obscurity. Bochart fancifully derives it from the Phoenician word Ur-appa, signifying the land of fair people,' as contrasted with the sable Africans, and tawny Asiatics all that is with certainty known of this appellation is, that it was applied at an early period to a small district on the northern shores of the Hellespont, whence it spread over new regions, as they became added to those which were previously discovered.

Europe is about 3500 miles in length, from Cape St. Vincent in Portugal, to the Oby in Russia; and 2700 miles in breadth, from Cape Metaphan, in the Morea, to the North Cape in Lapland. Its figure is so irregular, and its outline so indented with seas, bays, and gulfs, that it is difficult to estimate its superficial extent with accuracy, but it has been calculated to contain about 225,000 square geographical leagues, or 2700,000 square English miles. The population being computed at 185,000,000, there will be 822 inhabitants to cach square league, or nearly sixty-nine to a square mile.

In commencing our description of this continent at its southern shores, the great indenting seas of Europe on the north side of the Mediterranean are the Gulf of Venice or the Adriatic, and the Archipelago or the ancient Egean Sea. The former separates the shores of Italy from those of Dalmatia and Albania; the other divides Greece from Asia Minor. The Strait of Gallipoli, also called the Dardanelles and Hellespont, connects the Archipelago with the Sea of Marmora, which is about ninety miles in length, and forty-five in breadth. The Strait of Constantinople, the ancient Thracian Bosphorus, joins the Sea of Marmora, and the EUXINE, or Black Sea, which see. Its northern shore is united by the Strait of Caffa the Cimmerian Bosphorus of the ancients, with the Sea of Azor,

which is nearly 200 miles long and 100 broad. See that article.

The Bay of Biscay forms the large north-west opening between the shores of Spain and the south-western coast of France: and with the opposite approach of the Mediterranean, peninsulates the south-western portion of this continent.

Further north, the British Channel separates England from France, forming a communication between the Atlantic and the German Ocean, or British Sea; and terminating to the north-west in St. George's Channel, or the Irish Sea, flowing between England, Ireland, and the west of Scotland.

'According to the observations of a gentleman conversant in marine affairs,' says a writer in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, Jan. 1825, 'there is a remarkable difference in the appear ance, and also in the destructive effects, of the waves of the British Seas, compared with those of the Western Ocean. We doubt not that many will be surprised to be told, that the waves of the Bay of Biscay do not seem to be so destructive, in proportion to their great extent and weight, as those of our own seas. This appears to be owing to the slow pace at which these oceanic billows roll along in majestic style; while the surges of the British seas are quick in their motion, and impinge upon an obstacle with violent impulse. In evidence of the fact, it may be remarked, that the great platform of the Tour de Corduan, situate in the Bay of Biscay, at the entrance of the Garonne, is only about eighteen feet above the level of the sunken rock on which this magnificent structure is erected; and that the top of the parapet, or wall of circumvallation, which includes the store-rooms and other offices of the light-house, does not exceed twelve feet above the platform. Now, although the Corduan Rock is of much greater extent than the Eddystone or the Bell Rock, yet, judging from the appearance of things, as represented in the vignette to Mr. Smeaton's Narrative of the Eddystone Light-house, and the frontispiece to Mr. Stevenson's Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, in both of which the seas are represented as running up the building to the height of near 100 feet, we are led to apprehend, that, under like circumstances, the platform at Corduan would often be completely deluged with water, and that the offices erected upon it would be rendered wholly untenantable. And such would certainly be the case, but for the less velocity of the waves of the Bay of Biscay occasionally