Page:Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians Volume 1.djvu/58

10 10 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. I.

inches* ; and, comparing this with Elephantine, we shall find that a monument placed there at the same period would have been buried to the depth of about nineteen feet. Heliopolis stood to the south of the Delta ; and the diminution nortliwards, for every mile, in an expanse of increasing breadth, must have been proportionably greater as it ap- proached the sea, till at the shore it became almost nnperceptible, even after the lapse of many ages.

Having endeavoured to show that no argument can be derived from the appearance of the Delta, to favour the supposition of this district having been formed at a period when the upper part of the country was already inhabited, it is necessary to observe that I limit my remarks exclusively to the Nile, whose nature is very different from that of most rivers, and particularly those whose deltas have been created and rapidly increased by mate- rials brought down by their waters, and deposited at their mouths. These, consisting of trees and other vegetable productions, have tended to form here and there a nucleus for the construction of islands, afterwards connected with the mainland, and consolidated by alluvial deposit and fresh materials constantly adhering to them ; but this j)eculiarity is totally unknown at the mouth of the Kgyi)tian Nile.

Jt is not my jnesent intention to enter into any s])eculation uj)on the Ibnnalion of the alluvial land

• In my E^ypt and Tlielics C|). .'{ 1 .{.) I lia c haiil ' Itctwccn seven and L'iglit feet.' Tliis was iVoni inroiiiiation I reicived at Cairo, and, sus- pecting it to l)e erroneous, I sent to have it ascertained, and found it to [)e a» stated above.