DIVERSION OF THE NILE. 623 
through Egypt by way of Kosseir. In 1525 the King of Por. 
tugal was requested by the Emperor of Abyssinia to send him 
engineers for that purpose ; a successor of that prince threat- 
ened to attempt the project about the year 1700, and even as late 
as the French occupation of Egypt, the possibility of driving 
out the intruder by this means was suggested in England. 
It cannot be positively affirmed that the diversion of the wa- 
ters of the Nile to the Red Seais impossible. In the chain of 
mountains which separates the two valleys, brown found a deep 
depression or wadi, extending from the one to the other, appa- 
rently at no great elevation above the bed of the river, but the 
height of the summit level was not measured. 
Admitting the possibility of turning the whole river into the 
Red Sea, let us consider the probable effect of the change. 
First and most obvious is the total destruction of the fertility of 
Middle and Lower Egypt, the conversion of that part of the 
valley into a desert, and the extinction of its imperfect ¢iviliza- 
tion, if not the absolute extirpation of its inhabitants. This is 
the calamity threatened by the Abyssinian princes and the 
ferocious Portuguese warrior, and feared by the Sultans of 
Egypt. Beyond these immediate and palpable consequences 
neither party then looked; buta far wider geographical area, 
and far more extensive and various human interests, would be 
affected by the measure. The spread of the Nile during the 
annual inundation covers, for many weeks, several thousand 
square miles with water, and at other seasons of the year 
pervades the same and even a larger area with moisture by infil- 
tration. The abstraction of so large an evaporating surface 
from the southern shores of the Mediterranean could not 
but produce important effects on many meteorological phe- 
nomena, and the humidity, the temperature, the electrical con- 
dition and the atmospheric currents of North-eastern Africa 
might be modified toa degree that would sensibly affect the cli- 
mate of Europe. 
The Mediterranean, deprived of the contributions of the Nile, 
would require a larger supply, and of course a stronger cur- 
