194 [January, 1845. 



kings of the Xlllth Dynasty. All these inscriptions, which em- 

 brace a period of nearly fifty years, have no other object than to 

 mark the height to which the the river rose in the several years 

 of which they bear the date. Independently of the novelty of 

 these inscriptions, which are very short, they possess a great value 

 in enabling us to compare the ancient elevations of the waters of 

 the Nile with those of our own time ; for the oldest of these re- 

 cords dates back to a period of twenty-two hundred years before 

 the Christian era. Thus, the measurements I have made with 

 the greatest care, and which at this place were taken with com- 

 parative facility, on account of the vertical position of the impen- 

 ding rocks, have given the remarkable result, that the average 

 rise of the Nile four thousand years ago, was seven metres, thirty 

 cent, (or about twenty four English feet) higher than it is at the 

 present day. 



It will be readily conceived that this great difference in the 

 level of the river, must have had an important influence upon the 

 soil above the cataracts ; and it directly explains a fact that had 

 previously surprised me, viz: that in all the valley of Nubia, the 

 level of the soil upon both shores, although it consists entirely of 

 alluvium deposited by the Nile, is much more elevated than the 

 highest level of the river in the best year of modern inundation; 

 for the whole country has now to be irrigated by hydraulic ma- 

 chines called Sahie. 



The cataract of Semneh could never have influenced the height 

 of the river between Wady-Halfa and Assouan; but we may sup- 

 pose that the cataract of Assouan was in ancient times much 

 more closed than at present ; because we observe the same eleva- 

 tion of the soil in this part of the valley ; ^between the first and 

 second cataracts.] The mean elevation of the soil above the mean 

 height of the river, is here (Philce) somewhere from three 

 to four metres, (from 10? to 16j feet.) But this same country 

 still presents the traces of a much more ancient state, beyond the 

 record of history, when the granite mountains which separated 

 Ethiopia from Egypt obstructed the passage of the river, and 

 formed real lakes in some localities; as for instance, in the gul- 

 lies or gulfs between the rocks in the Arabian chain, wherein we 

 observe hillocks of Nile earth which rise ordinarily even to ten 

 and eleven metres (thirty-four to thirty-seven feot) above the level 

 of the highest modern inundation. 



