Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/450

 434 NILUS. continned by Dareius Hystaspis (b. c. 520 — 527), but nly completed by Ptolemy Pliiladelphus (b. c. 274). It began in the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, a little abovethe city of Bubastus {Tel-Bastu), and passing by the city of Thoum or Patumus, was car- ried by the Persians as far as the Bitter Lakes, NE. of the Delta. Here, however, it was suspended by the troubles of both Aegypt and Persia, under the successors of Dareius, and was, in a great measure, choked up with sand. (Herod, ii. 158.) At length Philadelphus, after cleansing and repairing the channel, carried it onward to Ai-sinoe, at the head of the Sinus Heroopolites. (Plin. vi. 29. s. 33.) The Ptolemaic canal, however, suffered the fate of its predecessor, and even before the reign of Cleopatra had become useless for navigation. The connection by water between Arsinoe and the Nile was renewed by Trajan, A. d. 106; but his engineers altered the diiection of the cutting. They brought the stream from a higher part of the river, in order that the current might run into, instead of from, the Red Sea, and that the intervening sandy tracts might be irrigated by fresh instead of partially salt water. The canal of Trajan accordingly began at Babylon, on the eastern bank of the Nile, opposite Memphis, and, passing by Heliopolis, Scenae Veteranorum, He- roopolis, and Serapion, entered the Red Sea about 20 miles S. of Arsinoe, at a town called Klysmon, from the locks in its neighbourhood. The work of Trajan was either more carefully preserved than that of the Macedonian and Persian kings of Aegypt had been, or, if like them, it fell into decay, it was re- paired and reopened by the JIahommedan conquerors of the country. For, seven centuries after Trajan's decease, we read of Christian pilgrims sailing along his canal on their route from England to Palestine. (Dicueil, de Mensm: Orbis, vi. ed Letronne.) 2. The Canopic canal (^ KavwSiKr] 5ia)pu|, Strab. xvii. p. 800; Stpph. B. s. v.) connected the city of Canopus with Alexandreia and the lake Mareotis. Its banks were covered with the country houses and gardens of the wealthy Alexandrians, and formed a kind of water, suburb to both the Aegyptian and Macedonian cities. [Canopus.] Physical Character of the Nile. The civilisation of all countries is directly influ- enced by their rivers, and in none more so than in Aesrvpt, which has been truly called the gift of the Nile'. (Herod, ii. 5 ; Strab. xi. p. 493.) To its stream the land owed not only its peculiar cultiva- tion, but its existence also. Without it the Libyan waste would have extended to the shores of the Red Sea. The limestone which lies under the soil of Aegypt, the sands which bound it to E. and W., were rendered by the deposits of the river fit for the habitation of man. The Delta, indeed, was absolutely created by the Nile. Its periodical floods at first narrowed a bay of the Mediterranean into an estuary, and next filled up the estuary with a plain of teeming alluvial soil. The religion, and many of the peculiar institutions of Aegypt, are derived from its river; and its physical characteristics have, in all ages, attracted the attention of historians and geographers. Its characteristics may be considered under the heads of (1) its deposits ; (2) the quality of its waters; and (3) its periodical inundations. (1.) Its deposits. — Borings made in the Delta to the depth of 45 feet, have shown that the soil con- sists of vegetable matter and an earthy deposit, such NILUS. as the Nile now brings down. The ingredients of this deposit are clay, lime, and siliceous sand ; but their proportion is affected by the soil over which the river flows. Calcareous and argillaceous matter abound in the neighbourhood of Cairo and the Delta; silex preponderates in the granitic and sand- stone districts of Upper Aegypt. The amount of this deposit corresponds generally to the slope of the banks and the distance from the river. In Lower Nubia and Upper Aegypt alluvial cliffs are formed to the height of 40 feet; in Middle Aegypt they sink to 30 ; at the point of the Delta to about eighteen. The earthy matter is deposited in a convex form ; the» larger quantity lying close to the stream, the smaller at the verge of the inundation. As a conse- quence of this fall from the banks towards the desert, the limit to which the inundation reaches is slowly ex- extending itself; but as the Nile raises its own bed as well as its banks, their relative proportion is preseiTed. The deposit of the Nile is found to consist of (1) clay, constituting 48 in 100 parts ; (2) carbon, 9 parts; (3) carbonate of lime 18 parts, and 4 parts of carbonate of magnesia, besides portions of silicia and oxide of iron. These form a compost so rich, that the land on which they are perennially deposited requires no other manure, and produces without further reno- vation successive harvests of corn. (Athen. ii. 41, 42 ; Plin. xviii. 19. s. 21.) (2.) The quality of its waters. — The water itself is not less important to Aegypt than the ingredients which it precipitates or holds in solution. Except some short streams in the Arabian hills, torrents at one season and dry at another, the Nile is the only river in Aegypt. Natural springs do not exist in the upper countiT ; and the wells of the Delta afford only a turbid and brackish fluid. The river is ac- cordingly the single resource of the inhabitants; and the frequent ablutions enjoined by their religion rendered a copious supply of water more than ordi- narily important to them. Between its highest and lowest periods, the water of the Nile is clear. When lowest, it is feculent (Athen. ii. 42); and at the beginning of the inundation is covered with a green- ish vegetable matter, that is said to cause erup- tive disease. But even when most turbid, it is not unwholesome, and is always capable of filtration. The water in its medium state was pure and de- licious to the taste. The Persian kings, after the conquest of Aegypt, imported it for their own drink- ing to Susa and Ecbatana (Athen. ii. 54, 67); and the emperor Pescennius Niger replied to his soldiers' demand for wine, " Have you not the water of the Nile." (Spartian. ap. August. Hist. Script. Pes- cenn. Niger, c. 7.) These changes in the hue and quality of the water were ascribed to the overflowing of the Nubian lakes, or to the passage of the stream over various strata. But until the channels of the White and Blue Rivers have been explored to their sources, we must be content to remain ignorant of the real causes of these phenomena. (3.) Its jieriodicul inundations. — The causes of the inundation early attracted the curiosity of ancient observers ; and various theories were de- vised to account for them. It was believed to arise from the melting of the snow on the Abyssinian mountains (Schol. in Apoll. Rhod. iv. 269 ; Eurip. Helen, init.) ; and Herodotus rejects this sup- position, because, as he conceived, 'although errone- ously, that snow was unknown in Aethiopia (ii. 22). It was ascribed to the Etesian winds, which, blowing from the N. in summer, force back the waters