Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/702

 6 7 g TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

fides, there is no country in the world, perhaps, but where this trick may be played with impunity, except in Egypt, for a realbn that I am about to explain.

The extenfion of the land of Egypt northward, the d*i- flance between it and Cyprus, and the fituation of Canopus, all (hew, that no or veny little alteration has been made thefe 3000 years. Dr Shaw, and the other writers, who are advocates for what has been advanced by Hercdotus *, that Egypt hath been produced b.y the Nile, have defcrted this ground of maintaining then hi potheiis, and have recourfc to the Nilometer to prove, that the foil has increafed in height, and' that a greater quantity of water is neceflary now to overflow the land of Egypt than was required in the days of Homer.

If the firft part of their affertion can be proved, I mail make no fort of difficulty of giving up the other. But I rather conceive, that none of thoie who have written upon this fubjedr. hitherto, whatever degree of learning and in- formation they may have pollened, have poiTelTed fufficient data to explain this fubjecl: intelligibly. It feems, indeed, to have remained with the Jonrce of the river, a iecret referved for latter times.

It will be necelTary for us firft to coniider what the ufe of a Nilometer was, for what caufe it was made, and by whom.

2 It

• Herod. Eut. left. 4, 5. Diod. Sic. lib. iii. p. 101. Ariil. Mtteorol. lib. i. cap. 14,