Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/700

 6 7 6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

defert, between Gooz and Syene, we faw huge pillars of this light fand ; their bafe in the earth, and heads in the clouds, crofling the wide expanfe in various directions, and, upon its becoming calm in the evening, falling to pieces, and bu- rying themfelves in the Nile, with whofe ftreaui they mix- ed like an impalpable powder, and were hurried down the river, to compofe the many fandy iflands we fee in the courfe of it.

It feems to be an eftablimed fact, that water of every fort,, frefh and fait, that of rivers, and what is ftagnant, has from early times fenfibly diminifhed through the whole world ; if then the land of Egypt has been continually rifing every year, while the quantity of water that was to cover it has become lefs, or at leafl not increafed, dearth in thefe latter years mil ft have been frequent in Egypt, for want of the Nile's rifing to a proper height; but this is fo far from being the cafe, that, in thefe laft 34 years*, there has not been one feafon of fcarcity from the lownefs of the Nile, although the rife having been too great, and the waters too abundant, have thrice in that time occafioned famine by carrying away the millet..

If the land of Egypt increafed (as Herodotus fays) one foot in 100 years, this addition muft have appeared in the moft ancient public monuments : now, the very bafe of all the obelifks in Upper Egypt, are bare and viable, and even the paved plane, laid vifibly on purpofe to receive the Gno- monical lhade, is not covered, nor fcarcely out of its level,

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 * Several Arabian MSS. atteft this.