04 Russegger's Bemarks on the Climate of Egypt, 



of the organic creation, especially of plants, which characterisea 

 our northern winter, but rather raise the whole vegetable 

 kingdom to the highest pitch of its vital development, and to 

 the fullest expansion of beauty. Thus Egypt is, in fact, never 

 more attractive than at the period when nature is with us 

 covered with snow and ice. This alternation of the two prin- 

 cipal seasons of the year, the summer and winter, represented 

 by the dry period of the year and the rainy, is, however, in the 

 order in which we have them in Europe, peculiar to the coast 

 region of Northern Africa ; and there begins in Egypt, south 

 of the 30th degree of latitude, that remarkable zone which 

 extends to the 18th degree, therefore over 12 degrees, and 

 which, owing to the rare atmospherical precipitations of water 

 that occur within its limits, I term the zone of little rain {die 

 regen-arme zone). AVithin the limits of this zone is placed the 

 African region of deserts, which, where the tropical rains 

 begin (which rains, to the north of the Equator, fall during our 

 summer), viz. to the south of the 18th degree, again gives 

 place to the Savannah-region, to those districts so remarkable 

 for their fertility on the banks of the great rivers.* 



We not unfrequently find it boldly asserted in the accounts 

 given by travellers of the climate of Lower Egypt, that it does 

 not rain at Cairo. This statement is untrue, and is one for 

 which science has to thank the presumptuous conclusions 

 formed by the ignorant or the credulous. In Egypt and Nubia 

 there is no district devoid of rain — at least for the natural 

 philosopher ; the peasants, it is true, not satisfied with a few 

 drops, judge otherwise, and their ideas require much correc- 

 tion to bring them to the truth. There are, however, districts 

 where it rains very rarely, and, even among these, Cairo, with 

 its vicinity, is not to be reckoned, for year after year storms 

 take place there during our winter months, which rarely pass 

 away without rain. Just as the years 1761 and 1702, in which 

 Niebuhr made his observations at Cairo, t undoubtedly belong 



* See my Essay on the Meteorology and Climate of the African Tropical 

 Region in Dr Holger's Zeitschrift filr Phynk imd verwandte Wissenschaftm, 

 vol. vi. part 2. "Vienna, 1840 ; and Contributions to the Physiognomy and 

 Geography of the African Tropical Region in Leonhard's Jahrbuch, 1840. 



t Karsten Niebnhr^g Rmebachreihmg nach Arahien, &c. Kopenhagen, 1774, 

 I vol. 



