SANDS OF EGYPT. 55a 
carry no desert sand into it. There are, however, both curves 
and angles in its course, and hence, wherever its direction de- 
viates from that of the wind, it might receive sand-drifts from 
the desert plain through which it runs. But, in the eourse of 
ages, the winds have, in a great measure, bared the projecting 
points of their ancient deposits, and no great accumulations 
remain in situations from which either a north or a south wind 
would carry them into the valley.* 
The sand let fall in Egypt by the north wind is derived, not 
from the desert, but from a very different source—the sea. 
Considerable quantities of sand are thrown up by the Mediter- 
ranean, at and between the mouths of the Nile, and indeed along 
almost the whole southern coast of that sea, and drifted into 
the interior to distances varying according to the force of the 
wind and the abundance and quality of the material. The 
sand so transported contributes to the gradual elevation of the 
Delta, and of the banks and bed of the river itself. But just 
in proportion as the bed of the stream is elevated, the height 
of the water in the annual inundations is increased also, and as 
* These considerations apply, with equal force, to the supposed danger of 
the obstruction of the Suez Canal by the drifting of the desert sands. 
The winds across the isthmus are almost uniformly from the north, and 
they swept it comparatively clean of flying sands long ages since. The 
traces of the ancient canal between the Red Sea and the Nile are easily 
followed for a considerable distance from Suez. Had the drifts upon the 
isthmus been as formidable as some have feared and others have hoped, those 
traces would have been obliterated, and Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes 
filled up, many centuries ago. The few particles driven by the rare east and 
west winds towards the line of the canal, will easily be arrested by planta- 
tions or other simple methods, or removed by dredging. The real dangers 
and difficulties of this magnificent enterprise—and they have been great— 
consisted in the nature of the soil to be removed in order to form the line, 
and especially in the constantly increasing accumulation of sea-sand at the 
southern terminus by the tides of the Red Sea, and of sand and Nile slime at 
the northern, by the action of the winds and currents. Both seas are shallow 
for miles from the shore, and the excavation and maintenance of deep chan- 
nels, and of capacious harbors with easy and secure entrances, in such locali- 
ties, is doubtless one of the hardest problems offered to modern engineers for 
practical solution. See post, Geological Importance of Dunes, note, 
