May 23, 1859.] DELTA OF THE NILE— SUEZ CANAL. 309 



his results have just been published by Her Majesty's Government. 

 Examining the sea shore and sea bottom at different depths along 

 the whole coast of Egypt, and distinguishing the real composition 

 of the detritus brought down by the river from other adjacent 

 deposits, he distinctly shows, that the wave stroke from the west, 

 influenced by the prevailing north-westerly winds, has for ages 

 been impeding the transport of any Nile deposits either to the west, 

 or into the depths of the Mediterranean on the north, but has con- 

 stantly driven them to the east. 



Through this unvarying natural process, Alexandria, which is on 

 the west of the Nile mouth, has been kept free from silt, whilst the 

 deltoid accumulations of the river have in the historic era succes- 

 sively choked up and ruined the harbours of Eosetta and Damietta, 

 and have formed a broader zone in the bay of Pelusium than on any 

 part of the coast. Again, he shows that the prevailing north- 

 westerly wind has produced precisely the same effect upon those 

 dunes and blown sands on the coast lands which, destroying habita- 

 tions and fertile fields, fill up depressions ; all these dunes being 

 derived from those sands which have originally been carried out by 

 the Nile from the interior of Africa, then thrown up on the shore, 

 and afterwards transported eastwards by the prevailing winds. 



With the establishment of such data, the result of many soundings 

 at sea and much close observation on land, illustrated in three maps 

 and two plates of sections, Captain Spratt contends, in the spirit of 

 a fair inductive reasoner, that the proposal of M. Lesseps to form a 

 large ship canal in the low countries between Suez and the Bay of 

 Pelusium is wholly unwarranted. — 1st. Because that bay of the 

 Mediterranean, into which the canal is to open, is so continuously 

 and regularly silting up, that no amount of dredging could contend 

 against a great local law of nature, and hence that no permanent 

 port could be formed there. 2ndly. That the blown sands drifted 

 from the west would be constantly filling up the canal. 3rdly, 

 That the very incoherent condition of the ground in which the 

 canal has to be cut (being nothing more than the Nilotic sands 

 accumulated in former days) would not sustain a steady body of 

 water, and that all attempts to clear out its unceasing infiUings of 

 matter would be impracticable. 



In this powerfully-argued paper. Captain Spratt quotes the 

 authority of the French savant, M. Lepire, who accompanied the 

 First Consul to Egypt in 1800, as a sanction to his conclusions. 



With an extended and accurate acquaintance as a maritime sur- 

 veyor of the deltas which the Danube and various rivers throw out 



