IOR/L/PS/5/464, ff 79-175

This part of the volume consists of copies of enclosures to a despatch from the Government of Bombay Secret Department to the Secret Committee, Number 34 of 1850, dated 25 June 1850. The enclosures are numbered 3-8 and are dated 11 April to 13 June 1850.

Most of the item consists of an account of a journey undertaken by Commander James Felix Jones of the Indian Navy, for determining the tract of the ancient Nahrwan [Nahrawan] Canal in Turkish Arabia [Ottoman Iraq, also written as Arabia Irak in this item], dated 20 September 1849, enclosed in a letter from the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Navy, Commander Stephen Lushington, to the President and Governor in Council of Bombay, Viscount Falkland (enclosure No. 3). The maps, plans and illustrations mentioned in the letter are not included in this item. Lushington also encloses a Contingent Bill of the expenses incurred by Commander Jones during his visit to the Nahrwan Canal.

The account is comprised of two sections:

• ‘Preliminary remarks on the Nahrwan Canal with a glance at the past history of its province’, which discusses matters including: conjectures about the origin and cause of the construction of the canal; the derivation of the name; and a general geological and geographical description of the tract watered by the combined streams of the Katul al Kesrawi [al-katul al-Kisrawi] and Nahrwan
• ‘Narrative of a journey undertaken for determining the track of the Ancient Nahrwan Canal’, undertaken in Spring 1848.

Enclosure Nos. 4-8 consist of a related minute of the Government of Bombay and brief correspondence between the following: the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Henry Edward Goldsmid; the Chief Engineer, Bombay, Lieutenant-Colonel George Ritso Jervis; the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Navy; and the Secretary to the Government of India with the Governor-General, Sir Henry Elliot. The correspondence discusses matters including Jones’s narrative being presented to the Bombay Geographical Society.