Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/51

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NAHR EL MEFJIR. NAHR ISKANDERUNEH.
35


With regret, it is observed that Monsieur V. Guerin in his "Description de la Palestine, Samarie "omits all that part of this basin, encircled by a line connecting Umm el Fahm, Tell edh Dhrur, Baka, Attil, Kefr Raay, Arrabeh, and Yabid; as well as a large tract to the north in the Zerka basin.


The Basins of Nahr Iskanderuneh and Nahr Falik.

The outfall which bears the first name on the Palestine Exploration Survey, enters the sea at Minet[1] Abu Zabûra, by which name the river also was called by former authorities. The basin is coterminous on the north with that of Nahr el Mefjir, and the waterparting on this side runs almost direct from Tell el Akhdar on the coast, to Yasid. There the Jordan basin is met, and continues along the eastern boundary, which runs from Yasid through Jebel Eslamiyeh (Mount Ebal) and Nablûs (Shechem), to the southern base of Jebel et Tur (Mount Gerizim). The southern waterparting divides this basin from that of the Nahr el 'Auja. It runs westward from Jebel et Tur, through Kh. Jafrûn, Ferâta, Kh. Askar, el Funduk, Kuryet Hajja and the road to Kefr 'Abbûsh, Kefr Zibad, Kefr Jemmâl, to Khurbet Nesha, round the Bir el Hanûtah, where it turns northward and parallel with the course of the Wady Kulunsaweh, to Umm Sur, where it turns seaward through Mukhalid.

All this, with part of the Mefjir basin on the north, pertained in former maps to the outfall of Nahr Falik; which is now found to be restricted to a part of the maritime plain between Mukhalid, Umm Sûr Miskeh, Kh. Sabieh, and el Jelil, a village on the coast, south of Arsuf, the site of Apollonia. The length of the Falik basin is about ten miles along the coast, and its greatest width towards the interior scarcely exceeds seven miles.

The entrance of the Iskanderuneh into the sea, is on the north-western angle of its oblong basin. A branch rising near Belâh (alt. 1,367 feet) drains the western part of its

  1. Minet signifies a harbour.