When it became evident that, under present conditions at least, the navigation of the middle Euphrates was impracticable, attention was turned, owing to the peculiarly advantageous geographical position of its valley, to schemes for connecting the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf by railway as an alternative means of communication with India, and various surveys were made for this purpose and various routes laid out. All these schemes, however, fell through either on the financial question, or on the unwillingness of the Turkish government to sanction any line not connected directly with Constantinople. With the acquisition of the Suez Canal, moreover, the value of this route from the British standpoint was so greatly diminished that the scheme, so far as England was concerned, was quite abandoned. (For further notice of the railway question see BAGDAD.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Gen. F.R. Chesney, _Euphrates Expedition_ (1850); W.F. Ainsworth, _Researches in Assyria and Babylonia_ (1838), and _Personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition_ (1888); A.H. Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_ (1853); W.K. Loftus, _Chaldaea and Susiana_ (1857); Geo. Rawlinson, _Herodotus_, bk. 1, essay ix. (1862); A. Blunt, _Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates_ (1873); Josef Cernik, _Studien-Expedition_ (1873); H. Kiepert, _Ruinenfelder Babyloniens_ (1883); Ed. Sachau, _Reise in Syrien u. Mesopotamien_ (1883), and _Am Euphrat u. Tigris_ (1900); Guy Le Strange, "Description of Mesopotamia," in _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ (1895), and _Baghdad under the Abbasid Caliphate_ (1901); J.P. Peters, _Nippur_ (1897); M. v. Oppenheim, _Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf_ (1900); H.V. Geere, _By Nile and Euphrates_ (1904); Baedeker, _Palestine and Syria_ (1906); Murray, _Handbook to Asia Minor_, &c., section iii. (H. C. R.; C. W. W.; J. P. Pe.)
[1] The confluence for about 500 years was at Korna, over 30 m. higher up. Sir W. Willcocks discovered (1909) that from Suk-esh-Sheiukh the Euphrates had formed a new channel through the marshes. (See _Geog. Journal_, Jan. 1910).
EUPHRONIUS, the most noted of the group of great vase-painters, who lived in Athens in the time of the Persian wars, and worked upon red-figured vases (see GREEK ART and CERAMICS). There is a monograph by W. Klein dealing with the artist. As all the great paintings of Greece have disappeared, we are obliged to trust to the designs on vases for our knowledge of Greek drawing and composition. Euphronius is stiff and archaic in style, but his subjects are varied, his groupings original and striking, and his mastery of the line decided. In their way, the vases which he painted will hold their own in comparison with those of any nation; for simplicity, truthfulness and charm they can scarcely be matched.