Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/684

 €6o TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

fertile, the Delta, is under the dominion of variable winds,, which lafl long, from one point, at no time.

I shall trefpafs upon my reader's patience, on this head,, by no more than one additional obfervation. If the Etcfian winds, by oppofing the ftream, occafioned the inundation, they could effev5t this no longer than they continued to blow. Now, it was an obfervation we made when on the Nile, and it was almoft without exception, that as often as the Etefian winds blew throughout the day, the night was either calm, or the wind blew gently from the fouth or eaft, fo that it is morally impoffible the river could have over- flowed at all, without a much more powerful and corw llant agent than the Etefian winds : — ■

Zephyros quoque vana vetujlas

His adfcripfit aquis, — — — — LuCAN.

Vain, indeed ! A philofopher of the prefent age would be thought mad who mould rely on a fyftem fo contrary to experiment and obfervation ; though Thales, the propa- gator of this now mentioned, was fo highly efteemed for his knowledge.

The next opinion quoted is that of Anaxagoras, who attributes the inundation of the Nile to fnow melting in Ethiopia ; and this Diodorus contradicts, for a very fubftan- tial reafon, that there is no fnow in Ethiopia to melt. Bur fuppofing all the mountainous part of Ethiopia north of the Line, that is all Abyffinia, were covered with fnow, then the inundation mull happen in other months, as it mull begin in January, for the fun being then within few de- 2 grees