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ed westward, led Europeans to look for its estuary in the Senegal, Gambia, and Rio Grande; but, upon examination of those rivers, the mistake was ascertained; and D'Anville and other geographers separated the course of the Senegal from that of the Niger, and of the latter from that of the Nile. Mungo Park was the first European who saw the great internal river of Soudan flowing towards the east, and called Joliba. He traced it in two different journeys, from Bammakoo, about ten days from its source, to Boussa, where he was unfortunately killed in 1806. Clapperton crossed the river at Boussa on his second journey to Sakkatoo, in 1826; and, after his death, his faithful servant, Richard Lander, undertook to navigate the river from Boussa to its mouth. In 1827 he proceeded from Badagry, on the coast, to Boussa, and there embarked on the river. He found that it flowed in a southern direction, receiving several large rivers from the east; among others, the noble Tschad

cient times) with the actual direction of the course of the Joliba and that of the river of Sakkatoo, supposing that river to form a communication with Lake Tschadd, as Ptolemy says that the Nigeir has a divergent to the lake Libye, which he places in 16° 30′ N. lat. and 35° E. long., and the words of the text seem to express that the water ran into the lake; so that the course of the Nigeir, according to Ptolemy, as well as his predecessors, was easterly, as the Joliba or Quorra actually runs for a great part of its course. "The lake Libye," observes a distinguished geographer, "to which there was an easterly divergent, I strongly suspect to have been the lake Tschadd, notwithstanding that the position of Libye falls 300 geographical miles northwestward of this lake; for the name of Libye favours the presumption that it was the principal lake in the interior of Libya; it was very natural that Ptolemy, like many of the moderns, should have been misinformed as to the communication of the river with that lake, and that he should have mistaken two riv-da, after which the united stream passed through an ers flowing from the same ridge in opposite directions, opening in the Kong chain, and that, after issuing one to the Quorra and the other to the Tschadd (I from the mountains, it sent off several branches both allude to the Sakkatoo and the Yeu rivers), for a east and west towards the coast, while he himself single communication from the Quorra to the lake." reached the sea by the branch known till then by the (Leake's paper "On the Quorra and Niger," in the name of Rio Nun.-From all, then, that has been second volume of the Journal of the Royal Geograph-stated, it will satisfactorily appear, that the great river ical Society of London, 1832.)-But Ptolemy, after of the Libya of Herodotus, the Nigris of Pliny, the all, may not have been so much misinformed with re- Nigeir of Ptolemy, and the Niger of modern geograspect to a communication existing between the lake phy, are one and the same river with the Quorra. M. and his Nigeir, if, as is now strongly suspected, the Walckenaer (Recherches Geographiques sur l'Interi communication really exists, though in an inverse di- cur de l'Afrique Septentrionale) has maintained the rection from that which Ptolemy appears to have un-negative side of the question, asserting that the anderstood. It is surmised that the river Tschadda, cients had no knowledge of Soudan, and that the Niwhich, at its junction with the Quorra, just above the geir of Ptolemy was one of the rivers flowing from beginning of the delta, is larger than the Quorra itself, the Atlas; but Col. Leake has ably answered him, receives an outlet from the lake somewhere about the and supported the affirmative in the paper already town of Jacobah. (Captain W. Allen, R. N., On a quoted." (Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 16, p. 221, seqq.) new construction of a Map of a Portion of Western -The singular theory of Sir Rufane Donkin, that the Africa, &c. Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. of Niger once flowed into the Mediterranean where the London, vol. 8, 1838.) If this surmise prove true, Syrtes now are, but that it has been choked up and it would explain the statement of the Arabian geogra- obliterated, in this part of its course, by the sands of phers of the middle ages, Edrisi, Abulfeda, and Leo the desert, is very ably refuted in the Quarterly ReAfricanus, who state that the Nil-el-Abid, or river of view (vol. 41, p. 226, seqq.). the negroes, flowed from east to west. The Tschad- NIGIDIUS FIGULUS, P., a celebrated astrologer, and da then would be the river of the Arabian, and the yet a man of excellent judgment. He was the friend Joliba or Upper Quorra that of the Greek and Roman, of Cicero, and consulted by him on all important ocgeographers. Both were ignorant of the real termi-casions. Nigidius was a senator at the time of Catnation of their respective streams. "It is neverthe- iline's conspiracy, and lent his best endeavours in aid less remarkable, that the distance laid by Ptolemy of Cicero. Five years after this he attained to the between his source of the river and the western coast prætorship, and displayed great firmness in dischar is the same as that given by modern observations; ging the duties of that office. He was, at a subsequent that Thamondocana, one of the towns on the Nigeir, period, allowed a free legation for visiting Asia; and, is exactly coincident with Tombuctoo, as recently laid returning from this country, met Cicero at Mytilene, down by M. Jomard from the itinerary of M. Cail- when the latter was going to take charge of his govlié; that the length of the course resulting from Ptole-ernment of Cilicia. The peripatetic Cratippus assistmy's positions is nearly equal to that of the Quorra, ed at the conference which the two friends held here, as far as the mountains of Kong, with the addition of and in which Nigidius, without doubt, maintained the the Tschadda or Shary of Funda; and that his po- tenets of Pythagoras, to whose school he belonged. sition of Mount Thala, at the southeastern extremity In the civil wars Nigidius followed the party of Pomof the Nigeir, is very near that in which we may sup- pey. Cæsar, who pardoned so easily, would not, howpose the Tschadda to have its origin; so that it would ever, become reconciled to him: he drove him into seem as if Ptolemy, like Sultan Bello and other mod-exile, notwithstanding all the efforts of Cicero in his ern Africans, had considered the Tschadda as a con- behalf. Nigidius died in exile a year before the astinuation of the main river, though he knew the Egyp-sassination of the dictator.-We have said that he was tian Nile too well to fall into the modern error of sup- a celebrated astrologer. He was strongly attached, posing the Nigeir to be a branch of the Nile. The indeed, to this pretended science, and devoted much mountains of Kong, and the passage of the river of his time to it. The ancient writers have recorded through them at right angles to their direction, form- several of his predictions, and, in particular, a very ed a natural termination to the extent of the geogra- remarkable one relative to Octavius (Augustus), and pher's knowledge; in like manner, as among ourselves, his becoming the master of the world. (Sueton., the presumed, and at length the ascertained, existence Aug., c. 94.-Dio Cass., 45, 1.) Cicero speaks on of those mountains, has been the chief obstacle to many occasions of his great erudition, and he was rea belief that the river terminated in the Atlantic." garded as the most learned of the Romans after Var(Leake's Paper "On the Quorra and Niger," already ro. He wrote a great number of works: one on quoted.)-The opinions established by the Arabian grammar, under the title of Commentarii Grammatigeographers of the middle ages, that the Niger flow-ci, in thirty books; a Treatise on Animals, in four

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books; another On Wind; a very large work On the | while Euthemenes was of opinion that it proceeded Gods; but, above all, a System of Astrology, or a from the borders of the Atlantic, and penetrated theory of the art of divination. Macrobius and Au- through the heart of Africa, dividing it into two conlus Gellius, in citing these works, have preserved for tinents. Virgil (Georg., 4, 290) appears to have faus some few fragments of them. An extract On voured a conjecture, which also found supporters at a Thunder, from one of his productions, exists in Greek, later period, that the Nile proceeded from the east, having been translated into that tongue by Lydus, and might be identified with one of the great rivers and inserted in his treatise on Prodigies. (Schöll, of Asia. (Russell's Egypt, p. 32, seqq.)-The nuHist. Lit. Rom., vol. 2, p. 187.) merous reports of the natives, who call the Mountains NILUS, the name of the great river of Eastern Afri- of the Moon by the Arabic version of the same name ca, the various branches of which have their rise in the Ibalu 'l Kamari, though generally pronounced Ibali high lands north of the equator, and, flowing through 'l Kumri, which would mean "blue mountains," seem Abyssinia and other regions to the westward of it, to agree in placing the sources of the Abiad several meet in the country of Sennaar. The united stream degrees north of the equator, at nearly an equal disflows northward through Nubia and Egypt, and, after tance between the eastern and western coasts of Afa course of more than 1800 miles from the farthest rica. But we have no positive information either as explored point of its principal branch, enters the Med- to the true position of the sources or of the mountains iterranean by several mouths, which form the delta of themselves. The Bahr el Azrek, or Blue River, Egypt. The word Nil seems to be an old indigenous which was long supposed to be the main branch of appellation, meaning "river," like that of Gir in Sou- the Nile, and which Bruce also took for such, has dan and other countries south of the Atlas. (Vid. Ni- three sources in the high land of Gojam, near the vilger.) The modern Egyptians call the river Bahr-Nil, lage of Geesh, southwest of Lake Dembea, in 10° 59′ or simply Bahr; in Nubia it is known by various 25" N. lat., and 36° 55′ 30′′ E. long., according to names; in Sennaar the central branch, or Blue Riv- Bruce's observations. The sources of the Azrek aper, is called Adit; and in Abyssinia, Abawi. The pear to have been visited by Father Paez, and perthree principal branches of the Nile are: 1. The haps by other missionaries, long before Bruce. The Bahr el Abiad, or White River, to the west, which is vast importance attached to that discovery has become now ascertained to be the largest and longest. 2. much diminished since the information which we have The Bahr el Azrek, or Blue River, in the centre. 3. acquired of the Abiad, whose sources are still unexThe Tacazze, or Atbara, which is the eastern branch. plored, and still involved in that mystery which the These three branches were known to Ptolemy, who ancients represent as hovering about the fountains of seems to have considered the western as the true the Nile. The Tacazze rises in the high mountains Nile, and to have called the Bahr el Azrek by the of Lasta, in about 11° 40′ N. lat., and 39° 40′ E. name of Astapus, and the Tacazze by the appellation long. Its sources were known to the Jesuit missionof Astaboras. He fixed the sources of the western aries in Abyssinia, and have been visited of late years river in numerous lakes at the foot of the Mountains by Pearce.-The Nile, from the confluence of the of the Moon, which he placed in 10° S. lat. Strabo Tacazze down to its entrance into the Mediterranean, (821) speaks of the island of Meroë as bounded on a distance of 1200 geographical miles measured along the south by the confluence of the Astaboras, Astapus, the course of the river, receives no permanent streams; and Astasobas. In another place (786) he says, that but in the season of rains it has wadys or torrents the Nile receives the Astaboras and Astapus; which flowing into it from the mountains that lie between latter "some call the Astasobas, and say that the As- it and the Red Sea. North of Argo, in 19° 40′ N. tapus is another river, which flows from some lakes in lat., the Nile enters the province of Dar Mahass, in the south, and makes pretty nearly the direct course Lower Nubia, where it forms a cataract or rapid, comof the Nile, and is swollen by summer-rains." While monly called the third cataract by those who ascend these passages certainly prove that the ancient geog- the river. After several windings, the river inclines raphers knew there were three main streams, they to the northeast; and near 22° N. lat. forms the secalso prove that their notions about them were extreme- ond cataract, called Wady Halfa, after which it passly confused. The Nile, as if it were doomed for ever es the splendid temple of Ipsambul. Continuing its to share the obscurity which covers the ancient history northeast course, the Nile, at about 24° N. lat., forms of the land to which it ministers, still conceals its true the last cataract, between granite rocks which cross sources from the eager curiosity of modern science. the river near Assouan, the ancient Syene. After enThe question which was agitated in the age of the tering the boundaries of Egypt, the Nile flows through Ptolemies has not yet been solved; and, although the whole length of that country, which it waters and 2000 years have elapsed since Eratosthenes published fertilizes, especially the Delta. Egypt, in fact, owes to his conjectures as to the origin of the principal branch, the Nile its very existence as a productive and habitawe possess not more satisfactory knowledge on that ble region, and accordingly, in olden times, the people particular point than was enjoyed in his days by the worshipped the beneficent river as their tutelary god. philosophers of Alexandrea. The repeated failures which had already attended the various attempts to discover its fountains, convinced the geographers of Greece and Rome that success was impossible, and that it was the will of the gods to conceal from all generations this great secret of nature. Homer, in language sufficiently ambiguous, describes it as a stream descending from heaven. Herodotus made inquiry in regard to its commencement, but soon saw reason to relinquish the attempt as altogether fruitless. Alexander the Great, and Ptolemy Philadelphus, engaged in the same undertaking, and despatched persons well qualified by their knowledge for the arduous task; but who, nevertheless, like the great father of history himself, travelled and inquired in vain. Pomponius Mela was doubtful whether it did not rise in the country of the Antipodes. Pliny traced it in imagination to a mountain in the Lower Mauritania,

1. The Delta.

The Nile, issuing from the valley a few miles north of Cairo, enters the wide low plain which, from its triangular form and its resemblance to the letter A, received from the Greeks the name of the Delta. The river, at a place called Batu el Bahara, near the ancient Cercasorus, divides into two branches, the one of which, flowing to Rosetta, and the other to Damietta, enclose between them the present Delta. These two arms or branches were anciently called the Canopic and Phatnitic. The figure of the Delta is now determined by these two branches, although the cultivated plain known by that name extends considerably beyond to the east and west, as far as the sandy desert on either side. In ancient times, however, the triangle of the Delta was much more obtuse at its apex, as its right side was formed by the Pelusiac

branch, which, detaching itself from the Nile higher | high enough to overflow the boundaries of their ba up than the Damietta branch, flowed to Pelusium, at the eastern extremity of Lake Menzaleh. This branch is now in a great measure choked up, though it still serves partly for the purpose of irrigation. During our winter months, which are the spring of Egypt, the Delta, as well as the valley of the Nile, looks like a delightful garden, smiling with verdure, and enamelled with the blossoms of trees and plants. Later in the year the soil becomes parched and dusty; and in May the suffocating khamseen begins to blow frequently from the south, sweeping along the fine sand, and causing various diseases, until the rising of the beneficent river comes again to refresh the land.-For some remarks on the fertility of Egypt, and of the Delta in particular, consult the article Egypt, ◊ 1, page 35, col. I.

2. Mouths of the Nile, and Inundation of the River. The ancients were acquainted with, and mention, seven mouths of the Nile, with respect to the changes in which, the following are the most established results. 1. The Canopic mouth, now partly confounded with the canal of Alexandrea, and partly lost in Lake Etko. 2. The Bolbitine mouth at Rosetta. 3. The Sebennytic mouth, probably the opening into the present Lake Burlos. 4. The Phatnitic or Bucolic at Damietta. 5. The Mendesian, which is lost in the Lake Menzaleh, the mouth of which is represented by that of Dibeh. 6. The Tanitic or Saïtic, which corresponds to the Moes canal, 7. The Pelusiac mouth seems to be represented by what is now the most easterly mouth of Lake Mencaleh, where the ruins of Pelusium are still visible.-The rise of the Nile, in common with that of all the rivers of the torrid zone, is caused by the heavy periodical rains which drench the table-land of Abyssinia and the mountainous country that stretches from it towards the south and west. This phenomenon is well explained by Bruce. "The air," he observes, "is so much rarefied by the sun during the time he remains almost stationary over the tropic of Capricorn, that the winds, loaded with vapours, rush in upon the land from the Atlantic on the west, the Indian Ocean on the east, and the cold Southern Ocean beyond the Cape. Thus a great quantity of vapour is gathered, as it were, into a focus; and, as the same causes continue to operate during the progress of the sun northward, a vast train of clouds proceed from south to north, which are sometimes extended much farther than at other periods. In April all the rivers in the south of Abyssinia begin to swell; in the beginning of June they are all full, and continue so while the sun remains stationary in the tropic of Cancer."-The rise of the Nile begins in June, about the summer solstice, and it continues to increase till September, overflowing the lowlands along its course. The Delta then looks like an immense marsh, interspersed with numerous islands, with villages, towns, and plantations of trees, just above the water, Should the Nile rise a few feet above its ordinary elevation, the inundation sweeps away the mud-built cottages of the Arabs, drowns their cattle, and involves the whole population in ruin. Again, should it fall short of the customary height, bad crops and dearth are the consequences. The inundation, after having remained stationary for a few days, begins to subside, and about the end of November most of the fields are left dry, and covered with a fresh layer of rich brown slime: this is the time when the lands are put under culture. It would seem that the river cuts a passage through a considerable extent of rich soil before it approaches the granite range which bounds the western extremity of Nubia. The tropical rains collect on the table-lands of the interior, where they form immense sheets of water, or temporary lakes. When these have reached a level

sins, they suddenly send down into the rivers an enormous volume of fluid impregnated with the soft earth over which it has for some time stagnated. Hence the momentary pauses and sudden renewals in the rise of the Nile; hence, too, the abundance of fertilizing slime, which is never found so copious in the waters of rivers that owe their increase solely to the direct influence of the rains. The mud of the Nile, upon analysis, gives nearly one half of argillaceous earth, with about one fourth of carbonate of lime; the remainder consisting of water, oxyde of iron, and carbonate of magnesia. On the very banks the slime is mixed with much sand, which it loses in proportion as it is carried farther from the river, so that, at a certain distance, it consists almost entirely of pure argil. This mud is employed in several arts bricks, as well as into a variety of vessels for domesamong the Egyptians. It is formed into excellent tic uses. It enters, also, into the manufacture of tobacco-pipes. Glass-makers employ it in the construction of their furnaces, and the country people cover their houses with it. We have already remarked, that Egypt is indebted for her rich harvests to the mould or soil which is deposited by the river during the annual flood. As soon as the waters retire, the cultivation of the ground commences. If it has imbibed the requisite degree of moisture, the process of agriculture is neither difficult nor tedious. The seed is scattered over the soft surface, and vegetation, which almost immediately succeeds, goes on with great rapidity. Where the land has been only par tially inundated, recourse is had to irrigation, by means of which many species of vegetables are raised, even during the dry season. Harvest follows at the distance of about six or eight weeks, according to the different kinds of grain, leaving time, in most cases, for a succession of crops wherever there is a full command of water.-The swellings of the Nile, in Upper Egypt, are from 30 to 35 feet; at Cairo they are 23 feet, according to Humboldt, but, according to Girard, 7.419 metres, nearly 244 feet; in the northern part of the Delta, owing to the breadth of the inundation and the artificial channels, only 4 feet.The common Egyptian mode of clarifying the water of the Nile is by means of pounded almonds. It holds a number of substances in a state of imperfect solution, which are in this way precipitated. Its water is then one of the purest known, remarkable for its being easily digested by the stomach, for its salutary qualities, and for all the purposes to which it is applied. Europeans, as well as natives, are loud in their eulogies on the agreeable and salubrious qualities of the water of the Nile. Giovanni Finati, for example, who was no stranger to the limpid streams of other lands, sighed for the opportunity of returning to Cairo, that he might once more drink its delicious water, and breathe its mild atmosphere. Maillet, too, a writer of good credit, remarks, that it is among waters what Champagne is among wines. The Mussulmans themselves acknowledge, that if their prophet Mohammed had tasted it, he would have supplicated heaven for a terrestrial immortality, that he might enjoy it for ever. (Russell's Egypt, p. 48, 52, seqq.) 3. Deposites of the Nile, and increase of the Della.

We have here a very interesting topic of inquiry. It is an observation as old as the days of Herodotus, that Egypt is the gift of the Nile. This historian imagined that all the lower division of the country was formerly a deep bay or arm of the sea, and that it had been gradually filled up by depositions from the river. He illustrates his reasoning on this subject by supposing, that the present appearance of the Red Sea resembles exactly the aspect which Egypt must have exhibited in its original state; and that if the Nile by any

means were admitted to flow into the Arabian Gulf, of which the following are some of the most remarkit would, in the course of 20,000 years, convey into it able: 1. The depth of the soil round the colossal such a quantity of earth as would raise its bed to the statue of Memnon, at Thebes, gives only 0.106 of a level of the surrounding coast. I am of opinion, he mètre (less than four inches) as the rate of accumulasubjoins, that this might take place even within 10,000 tion in a century, while the mean of several observayears; why then might not a bay still more spacious tions made in the valley of Lower Egypt gives 0.126 than this be choked up with mud, in the time which of a mètre, or rather more than four inches. But the passed before our age, by a stream so great and pow-basis of the statue of Memnon was certainly raised erful as the Nile? (2, 11.)-The men of science who above the level of the inundation by being placed on accompanied the French expedition into Egypt under- an artificial mound; and excavations made near it took to measure the depth of alluvial matter which has show that the original height of that was six mètres been actually deposited by the river. By sinking pits (19.686 feet) above the level of the soil. A similar at different intervals, both on the banks of the current result is obtained from examining the foundations of and on the outer edge of the stratum, they ascertained the palace at Luxor. Taking, therefore, 0.126 of a satisfactorily, first, that the surface of the soil de-mètre, the mean secular augmentation of the soil, as a clines from the margin of the stream towards the foot divisor, the quotient, 4760, gives the number of years of the hills; secondly, that the thickness of the de- which have elapsed since the foundation of Thebes posite is generally about ten feet near the river, and was laid. This date, which, of course, can only be decreases gradually as it recedes from it; and, thirdly, considered as a very imperfect approximation to the that beneath the mud there is a bed of sand analogous truth, carries the origin of that celebrated metropolis to the substance which has at all times been brought as far back as 2960 years before Christ, and, conse down by the flood of the Nile. This convex form as- quently, 612 years before the Deluge, according to the sumed by the surface of the valley is not peculiar to reckoning of the modern Jews. But the numbers Egypt, being common to the banks of all great rivers, given there differ materially from those of the Samarian where the quantity of soil transported by the current text and the Septuagint version; which, carrying the is greater than that which is washed down by rain Deluge back to the year 3716 before Christ, make an from the neighbouring mountains. The plains which interval of seven centuries and a half between the skirt the Mississippi and the Ganges present in many flood and the building of Thebes. Though no dis parts an example of the same phenomenon.-An at- tinct account of the age of that city is to be found tempt has likewise been made to ascertain the rate of in the Greek historians, it is clear from Diodorus that the annual deposition of alluvial substance, and there- they believed it to have been begun in a very remote by to measure the elevation which has been conferred period of antiquity. (Diod. Sic., 1, 15.)—2. The rubupon the valley of Egypt by the action of its river. bish collected at the foot of the obelisk of Luxor indiBut on no point are travellers less agreed than in re- cates that it was erected fourteen hundred years before gard to the change of level and the increase of land the Christian era.-3. The causeway which crosses on the seacoast. Dr. Shaw and M. Savary take their the plain of Siout furnishes a similar ground for sup stand on the one side, and are resolutely opposed by posing that it must have been founded twelve hundred Bruce and Volney on the other. Herodotus informs years anterior to the same epoch.-4. The pillar at us, that in the reign of Moris, if the Nile rose to the Heliopolis, six miles from Cairo, appears, from eviheight of eight cubits, all the lands of Egypt were suf-dence strictly analogous, to have been raised about ficiently watered; but that in his own time-not quite the period just specified; but, as the waters drain off 900 years afterward-the country was not covered more slowly in the Delta than in Upper Egypt, the with less than fifteen or sixteen cubits of water. The accumulation of alluvial soil is more rapid there than addition of soil, therefore, was equal to seven cubits higher up the stream; the foundations, therefore, of at the least, or 126 inches in the course of 900 years. ancient buildings in the former district will be at as "But at present," says Dr. Shaw, "the river must great a depth below the surface as those of much greatrise to the height of twenty cubits—and it usually er antiquity are in the middle and upper provinces. rises to 24 cubits-before the whole country is over- But it is obvious that to form these calculations with flowed. Since the time, therefore, of Herodotus, such accuracy as would render them less liable to disEgypt has gained new soil to the depth of 230 inches. pute, more time and observation would be requisite And if we look back from the reign of Moris to the than could be given by the French in the short period time of the Deluge, and reckon that interval by the during which they continued in undisturbed possession same proportion, we shall find that the whole perpen- of Egypt. One general and important consequence, dicular accession of the soil, from the Deluge to A.D. however, arising from their inquiries, can hardly be 1721, must be 500 inches; that is, the land of Egypt has overlooked or denied; namely, that the dates thus obgained 41 feet 8 inches of soil in 4072 years. Thus, tained are as remote from the extravagant chronology in process of time, the country may be raised to such of the ancient Egyptians, as they are consistent with a height that the river will not be able to overflow its the testimony of both sacred and profane history, with banks; and Egypt, consequently, from being the most regard to the early civilization of that interesting fertile, will, for want of the annual inundation, become country. But, little or no reliance can be placed on one of the most barren parts of the universe." (Shaw's such conclusions, because it is now manifestly imposTravels, vol. 2, p. 235.)-We shall see presently that sible to ascertain, in the first instance, whether the this fear on the part of the learned traveller is entirely measures referred to by the ancient historians were in without foundation. Were it possible to determine all cases of the same standard; and, secondly, whether the mean rate of accumulation, a species of chronome- the deposition of soil in the Egyptian valley did not ter would be thereby obtained for measuring the lapse proceed more rapidly in early times than it does in our of time which has passed since any monument, or oth- days, or even than it has done ever since its effects er work of art in the neighbourhood of the river, was first became an object of philosophical curiosity. That originally founded. In applying the principle now sta- the level of the land has been raised, and its extent ted, it is not necessary to assume anything more than towards the sea greatly increased since the age of Hethat the building in question was not placed by its rodotus, we might safely infer, as well from the great architect under the level of the river at its ordinary in-infusion of earthy matter which is held in suspension undations, a postulatum which, in regard to palaces, temples, and statues, will be most readily granted. Proceeding on this ground, the French philosophers hazarded a conjecture respecting a number of dates,

by the Nile when in a state of flood, as from the analogous operation of all large rivers, both in the old continents and in the new. There is, in truth, no good reason for questioning the fact mentioned by Dr. Shaw,

that the mud of Ethiopia has been detected by sound- | is a mark evidently as if the water had reached so high: ings at the distance of not less than twenty leagues the colour of the materials, also, above that mark, is from the coast of the Delta. Nor yet is there any sub-much lighter than that of those below. And what stantial ground for apprehending, with the author just would almost determine that there has been water here named, that, in process of time, the whole country is, that the island has the same mark, and on the same may be raised to such a height that the river will not level with that on the banks of the supposed river. I be able to overflow its banks; and, consequently, that am at a loss to conjecture how the course of this river Egypt, from being the most fertile, will, for want of is so little known, as I only found it marked near the the annual inundation, become one of the most barren Natron Lakes, taking a direction of northwest and parts of the universe. "According to an approximate southeast, which does not agree with its course here, calculation," observes Wilkinson, "the land about the which is from north to south, as far as I could see from first or lowest cataract has been raised nine feet in the summit of a high rock on the west side of it. The 1700 years, at Thebes about seven feet, and at Cairo Arabs assured me that it ran a great ways in both diabout five feet ten inches; while at Rosetta and the rections, and that it is the same which passes near the mouths of the Nile, where the perpendicular thickness Natron Lakes. If this be the case, it must pass right of the deposite is much less than in the valley of Cen- before the extremity of the lake Moris, at the distance tral and Upper Egypt, owing to the great extent, east of two or three days' journey in a western direction. and west, over which the inundation spreads, the rise This is the place where several petrified stumps of of the soil has been comparatively imperceptible." As trees are found, and many pebbles, with moving or the bed of the Nile always keeps pace with the eleva quick water inside."" (Belzoni, vol. 2, p. 183.) tion of the soil, and the proportion of water brought down by the river continues to be the same, it follows that the Nile now overflows a greater extent of land, both east and west, than in former times; and that the superficies of cultivable land in the plains of Thebes and of Central Egypt continues to increase. All fears, therefore, about the stoppage of the overflowing of the Nile are unfounded. (Russell's Egypt, p. 37, seqq.— Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 16, p. 234.)

4. Change in the course of the Nile.

NINUS, I. son of Belus, and king of Assyria. His history is known to us merely through Ctesias, from whom Diodorus Siculus and Justin have copied. (Heyne, de Fontibus, Diod. Sic., p. liii., seqq., vol. 1, ed. Bip.) Ctesias and Julius Africanus make him to have ascended the throne 2048 B.C., and from the narrative of Diodorus he would appear to have been a warlike prince, who signalized himself by extensive conquests, reducing under his sway the Babylonians, Armenians, Medes, Bactrians, Indi, and, in a word, the whole of Upper and Lower Asia. Even Egypt The Nile is said by Herodotus (2, 99) to have flow-felt his sway. In his expedition against the Bactrians ed, previously to the time of Menes, on the side of he met with the famous Semiramis, with whom he Libya. This prince, by constructing a mound at the united himself in marriage. After completing his condistance of 100 stadia from Memphis, towards the quests, Ninus, according to the Greek writers, erected south, diverted its course. The ancient course is not for his capital the celebrated city of Nineveh (vid. Niunknown at present, and may be traced across the nus II.-Compare, however, remarks under the article desert, passing west of the Natron Lakes. It is call- Assyria), and on his death was succeeded by Semiraed by the Arabs Bahr-bela-Maich, "The river with- mis, who reared a tomb of vast dimensions over his out water," and presents itself to the view in a valley grave.-Much of what is stated respecting this monwhich runs parallel to that containing the lakes just arch is either purely fabulous, or else various legends mentioned. In the sand with which its channel is ev- respecting different conquerors are made to unite in erywhere covered, trunks of trees have been found in one. He occupies the boundary between fable and a state of complete petrifaction, and also the vertebral history. (Ctes., ap. Diod Sic., 2, 1, seqq. — Ctes., bone of a large fish. Jasper, quartz, and petrosilex Fragm., ed. Bähr, p. 389, seqq.)-II. The capital of have likewise been observed scattered over the sur- the Assyrian Empire, called by the Greeks and Roface. "That_the_Nile originally flowed through the mans Ninus (Nīvos), but in Scripture Nineveh, and in valley of the Dry River," observes Russell (Egypt, p. the Septuagint version, Nevevt or Nevevn. It was sit102, seqq.), "is admitted by the most intelligent among uate in the plain of Aturia, on the Tigris (Strabo, 737. modern travellers. M. Denon, for example, regards -Herod., 1, 193.—Id., 2, 150.-Ptol., 6, 1), and not as proofs of this fact the physical conformation of the on the Euphrates, as Diodorus states on the authority adjoining country; the existence of the bed of a river of Ctesias. (Diod. Sic., 2, 3.) The Hebrew and extending to the sea, but now dry; its depositions and Greek writers concur in describing Nineveh as a very incrustations; its extent; its bearing towards the north large and populous city. Jonah speaks of it as "an on a chain of hills which run east and west, and turn exceeding great city, of three days' journey" (Jon., 3, off towards the northwest, sloping down to follow the 3), and states that there were more than 120,000 percourse of the valley of the dry channel, and likewise sons in it that knew not their right hand from their left the Natron Lakes. And, more than all the other proofs, (4, 11). Rosenmüller and other commentators suppose the form of the chain of mountains at the north of the this to be a proverbial expression to denote children Pyramid, which shuts the entrance of the valley, and under the age of three or five years, and accordingly appears to be cut perpendicularly, like almost all the estimate the entire population at two millions; but mountains at the foot of which the Nile flows at the the expression in Jonah is too vague to warrant us present day; all these offer to the view a channel left in making any such conclusion. Strabo says that it dry, and its several remains. (Denon, vol. 1, p. 163.) was larger than Babylon (Strab., 737); but if any The opinion that the river of Egypt penetrated into dependance is to be placed on the account of Diothe Libyan desert, even to the westward of Fayoum, dorus (2, 3), who states that it was 480 stadia in ciris rendered probable by some observations recorded in cumference, it must have been about the same size as the second volume of Belzoni's Researches. In his Babylon. (Herod., 1, 178.) The walls of Nineveh journey to the Oasis of Ammon, he reached, one even- are described by Diodorus as 100 feet high, and so ing, the Bahr-bela-Maich. This place,' he remarks, broad that three chariots might be driven on them is singular, and deserves the attention of the geogra- abreast. Upon the walls stood 1500 towers, each 200 pher, as it is a dry river, and has all the appearance feet in height, and the whole was so strong as to be of water having been in it, the bank and bottom being deemed impregnable. (Diod. Sic., 2, 3.-Nahum, c. quite full of stones and sand. There are several isl- 2.) According to the Greek writers, Ninus was foundands in the centre; but the most remarkable circum-ed by a king of the same name (vid. Ninus I.); but stance is, that at a certain height upon the bank there in the book of Genesis it is stated to have been built

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