130 Madden's Travels in Turkey, tyc. 



naturally suggested these questions, but their solution, says 

 Mr. Madden, is far from being easy. He scouts Dessaix's 

 notion that Nature, having expended all her art in perfecting 

 the rest of the world, left the Desert but half made up ; and 

 throws out the following for want of a better explanation : — 



" The Deserts, I imagine, from the peculiarity of their situation, 

 were the last places from which the waters of the Deluge retired; 

 consequently the deposition of sand, in those places, was much 

 greater than elsewhere. This sand is identical with that of the 

 ocean ; it is formed of the same transparent particles of quartz and 

 silex. In all probability, in ancient times, it did not occupy the 

 tenth part of the surface which it now does ; but when population 

 diminished and cultivation ceased, the sands in the interior were 

 dispersed by the prevailing winds, particularly those of the north 

 and west, over the plains ; and the soil, for want of irrigation, be- 

 came an arid surface: plantation, which above all impedes the ac- 

 cumulation of sand beyond it, when no longer attended to, favoured 

 the desolation of the land. 



* On the seacoast, particularly of Egypt, the flatness of the 

 country allows a free passage to the winds, which come loaded from 

 the shore with particles of sand. Thus I particularly remarked on 

 the shores of Rosetta and Damietta, near the Boghas, the setting up 

 of a small stick on the shore would be a sufficient nucleus, in the 

 course of a few months, for the formation of a mountain of sand. 

 One thing is certain, that wherever there is water, no matter in 

 what part of the Wilderness, there vegetation is to be found. The 

 stopping up of canals, and the want of irrigation, are the great 

 causes of desolation which favour the extension of the Desert. The 

 country from San to Salehie, and probably to Suez, was formerly a 

 cultivated country : the ruins of palaces, such as those of Zoan and 

 that of the Beit Pharoon, now in the middle of the Desert, prove 

 that the country around them must have been cultivated, and that, 

 at a very short period before our era." 



The latter half of the second volume is occupied with 

 some very interesting pictures of the Holy Land. We can 

 only find room, however, for the following sketch of the Dead 

 Sea, or the Sea of Lot, as the natives call it. From the 

 summit of a sterile rock, he first looked down upon the 

 glossy lake, three hundred feet below him. The towering 

 mountain on the opposite coast coast appeared almost ten 

 miles distant. 



" The moon was shining in all her oriental splendour, on the 

 desecrated scene; the shadows of the rugged promontories around 

 me were reflected on the lake ; but on its surface not a ripple was 

 to be seen ; the silence of death was there, and the malediction of 

 heaven was written on the soil ! For miles around me there was 



