the present and former Levels of "Egypt. 213 



pendicular thickness of the deposit is lessened in a much 

 greater decreasing ratio than in the straitened valley of Cen- 

 tral and Upper Egypt, owing to the great extent, east and 

 west, over which the inundation spreads, and there the eleva- 

 tion of the land, in the same period of 1700 years, has been 

 comparatively imperceptible. In like manner, the proportion 

 between the increase at Elephantine and Thebes differs from 

 that between Thebes and Heliopolis, because the breadth of 

 the valley is greater below Thebes, and because the farther 

 southward the more is the deposit. In one case, 1^° of lati- 

 tude gives a difference of about two feet ; in the other (from 

 Thebes to Heliopolis), 4 4° give a difference of only one foot 

 two inches. 



Those arguments used to shew the effects of the alluvial 

 deposit in rapidly protruding the Delta into the sea, founded 

 on the statement of Homer respecting the isle of Pharos, 

 will not, I trust, be again brought forward, since positive 

 facts prove the limited progress made by the Delta, from the 

 earliest times of which any record exists, by the position of 

 ancient cities, as Pelussium, Canopus, and others, whose sites 

 are still in the vicinity of the sea-coast, but which, if any great 

 protrusion of the land into the Mediterranean had actually 

 taken place, ought at this time, after a lapse of between 3000 

 and 4000 years, to be far inland. 



With regard to the statement of Homer,* that " the dis- 

 tance from the isle of Pharos to ^gyptus was as much as a 

 vessel, with a fair wind, could perform in one day," I have 

 shewn,t that all arguments derived from it are inadmissible, 

 in consequence of the situation of that island and the nature 

 of the ground on which Alexandria is built. That city stands 

 on the rock of the Libyan desert, which is still, as it ever 

 was, above the reach of the inundation ; and the breadth of 

 the channel, between the shore and the island of Pharos, was, 

 in the days of Homer, and at evciy period, precisely the same. 

 After the foundation of Alexandria, the island was united to 

 the shore by an artificial dyke called the Heptastadium ; but, 

 though this connected them, it did not bring the shore one 



■'■•■ Ody.sH. ^, :'>5.'). ,>,.I :!! 



'•' Manners and Customs of tlio Ancient i^gyptijins, \ ol. i. p.'TsiHnorn 



