460 Professor Renwick on 



menon, supposed to coincide with the overflow of the Nile, 

 became an observation of the greatest interest; and the star, in 

 whose heliacal rising it consisted, passed into an object of worship. 



Of this fact, and of its reason, many authorities may be 

 adduced, even from the few authors that have come down to us, 

 who have treated directly cr incidentally of the affairs of Egypt. 

 The star was the Dog Star, the ' AGT^XVUV of the Greeks, the 

 Sothis and Soth of the Egyptians; a star sacred to the goddess 

 Isis, and probably worshipped itself under the form of Anubis 

 Oppida tota Canem venerantur. Juvenal. 



From the rising of this star they were accustomed, according 

 to Horus Apollo, to predict the occurrences of the follow- 

 ing year. So also in Cicero de Divinatione, lib. i. : 

 " Eos accipimus ortum caniculse diligenter quotannis solere 

 servare, conjecturamque capere (utscribitPonteius Heraclides), 

 salubris ne, an pestilens annus futurus sit." Likewise in 

 Porphyr. de Nymph., as quoted by Sir John Marsham : 

 " ^Egyptiis principium anni, non Aquarius, ut apud Romanes, 

 sed Cancer. Nam prope Cancrum est Sothis, quam Graeci 

 Canis-Sidus dicunt, Neomenia autem est ipsius Sothidis ortus, 

 quae generationis mundi ducit initium." By the testimony of 

 Censorinus, we find that the epoch of Egyptian chronology 

 was the coincidence of the first day of the vague year with the 

 rising of Sirius; and we find, in Diodorus Siculns, a tradition 

 of the priests, by which the rising of the Nile is connected with 

 the appearance of Sirius. It is, however, useless to multiply 

 citations to illustrate the admitted fact, that the heliacal rising 

 of Sirius was considered as corresponding with the commence- 

 ment of the inundation of the Nile. 



It may then be concluded, that, at the time the wants 

 and interests of the first settlers of Egypt led them to endea- 

 vour to connect the most interesting period of their seasons 

 with astronomic phenomena, these two phenomena were so 

 near to each other, that the appearance of the star might be 

 taken as the sure prognostic of the rise of the river. This, how- 

 ever, is far from being the case at present ; the inundation has 

 already reached a considerable height before the star becomes 

 visible, and the latter can no longer serve as an astronomic 

 presage of an event that occurs subsequent to it. 



The rising of the Nile is gradual, and is first to be remarked 



