1 42 Observations on Sculptured Marks on 



et la riviere, dans ses debordemens, arrive jusqu* au pied du mur de 

 la terrasse." 



Parthey informs us that the temple of Sebua is about 200 feet 

 distant from the river, in which distance there are two rows of 

 sphinxes, and that the road between them, from the temple, ends in 

 wide steps at the water's edge ; and he adds, that Champellion refers 

 this temple to the time of Rameses the Great.* 



It thus appears that monuments exist close to the river, some of 

 which were constructed at least 1400 years before our era ; so that 

 taking the time of Amenemha III. to be, as Professor Lepsius states, 

 2200 years b.c, the excavation of the bed of the Nile which he sup- 

 poses to have taken place, must have been the work, not of 4000 

 years but of 800. If the erosive power of the river was so active 

 in that time, it cannot be supposed that it then ceased ; it would 

 surely have continued to deepen the bed during the following 3000 

 years. 



At all events, the buildings on the island of Philae demonstrate 

 that the bed of the Nile must have been very much the same as it 

 is now, 2200 years ago ; and even a thousand years earlier it must 

 have been the same, if the foundation of the temple on the island of 

 Eegh, opposite to Philae, be near the limit of the highest rise of the 

 Nile of the present time ; so that there could be no barrier at the 

 Cataract of Assuan to dam up the Nile when theyVere constructed ; 

 and thus the deafening sound of the waterfall recorded by Cicero and 

 Seneca must still be held to be an exaggeration. 



The existence of alluvial soil, apparently of the same kind as that 

 deposited by the Nile, in situations above the Cataract of Assuan, 

 at a level considerably above the highest point which the inunda- 

 tions of the river have reached in modern times, to which allusion is 

 made by Professor Lepsius, has been noticed by other travellers, 

 and even at still higher levels than those he mentions. Whether 

 that alluvial soil be identical with, or only resembles the Nile de- 

 posit, would require to be determined by a close examination, and 

 especially with regard to organic remains, if any can be found in it. 

 There is no evidence to shew that it was deposited during the historical 

 period, and it may be an evidence of a depression and subsequent 

 elevation of the land antecedent to that period. It may not be of 

 fresh-water origin, but the clay and sand, or till, left by a drift while 

 the land was under the sea. For remote as is the antiquity of Nubia 

 and Egypt, in relation to the existence of the human race, it appears 

 to be of very modern formation in geological time. The greater 

 part of Lower Egypt, probably all the Delta, is of post-pliocene age, 

 and even late in that age ; and the very granite of the Cataract of 

 Assuan, that of which the oldest monuments in Egypt are formed, 

 and which, in the earlier days of geology, was looked upon as the 



* Warnderungen, &c., 334. 



