Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Scanderoon

SCANDEROON (Iscanderún), or Alexandretta, lies girdled by green hills on the picturesque bay of the same name, the ancient Sinus Issicus, at the extreme north of the Syrian coast, where it forms an angle with that of Asia Minor. Alexandretta succeeded an older town of Alexandria (Little Alexandria), founded by Alexander the Great, but does not perhaps occupy quite the same site. The harbour is the best on the Syrian coast, and steamers call at it regularly, but the town is scourged with fever and has only some 2500 inhabitants, mainly Greek Christians. It is the port of Aleppo, and would naturally be the port of an "Euphrates railway."