On the Arabian Frontier of Egypt. 33 



this shoal is 11 J- geogr. miles long. So that Darius found it 

 necessary to make the opening for the canal, which his prede- 

 cessors had not required. The Persepolitan characters found 

 on the fragments of ruins at the north end of this shoal,* tes- 

 tify that his operations were sufficiently important to be re- 

 corded on its monuments ; and that a marine station existed 

 in his time — if he did not build it — at the very spot where 

 such a station would be absolutely necessary for the accom- 

 modation and protection of commercial bands, if, in his time, 

 the sea was no longer navigable at that spot. 



As we see no fui'ther reason why we should not admit the 

 accounts of Strabo and Pliny, who ascribe the commence- 

 ment of this great enterprise to a much earlier period than 

 that mentioned by Herodotus, we may now proceed to inquire 

 why such a canal as the latter ascribes to Necho, was re- 

 quired along a valley so well watered by nature and by art 

 scarcely 900 years before, that it is utterly contrary to phy- 

 sical possibility for the river to have failed naturally during 

 that interval. 



In proportion as the soil over which the Nile flows is 

 raised by its depositions, the waters of the inundation spread 

 over a greater area of land than before. Such a hollow as the 

 valley of the Etiiam river presents, must have filled faster 

 than any other channel of the Nile, since little or no alluvial 

 deposits could be borne by the current beyond the acclivity 

 where we have seen that the excavated channel begins. In 

 the time of Necho, a much greater area of land must have 

 been laid under water at every inundation than in the time of 

 the early Phai-aohs ; and where the course of the Pelusiac 

 bi'anch was so near that of its Etiiam derivation, its waters 

 were sufficient to irrigate the upper district of the Ethasi 

 river's course ; so that the latter, there, could be dispensed 

 with as useless, while the rest was worse, — very mischievous. 

 For the great height to which the water rose in the valley 

 must have destroyed — instead of fertilizing — the land conti- 



* The 8ite of those ruins is iiulicatcil on the map, tliough the name of the 

 plucc is not known. 



VOL. XlilV. NO. liX.X.Wir. — .FAN. 1848. C 



