212 On the Arabimi Frontier of Egypt. 



1800, they had already suffered a great loss in height. The 

 perpendicular height of the Nile near Bubastis, and conse- 

 quently in the corresponding place of the plain of the Delta 

 near Abbasieh, must have been one foot below the level of 

 the Red Sea. But at Moukfar, it was 11 feet 3 inches 11 

 lines below the same mark.* This great loss is explained 

 by the fact that immediately beyond Moukfar, the water be- 

 gan to shew the remarkably rapid downward cuiTcnt already 

 referred to ; a current far exceeding that of the natural 

 course of the Nile in velocity, — (M. Devilliers estimates it at 

 4 feet per second), proving the truth of M. Le Pere's re- 

 mark, " que les eaux avaient trouve des terrains beaucoup 

 plus has sur lesquels elles se repandaient."t 



It is therefore obvious, that if, at the present time, and 

 during an excessive fiood, the Nile is already lower than the 

 sea at Bubastis, where, in the time of Darius, the canal 

 began, — it must have been utterly inconsistent with such a 

 project as Darius is said to have executed, to allow of any 

 further waste of height, at a period when a similar flood must 

 have fallen considerably short of the same mark.| To carry 



* Vide Sect. 2., Plate V., for the heiglu of an ordinary inundation, on the 

 diagram of Canal Moez. Vide, also diagr. B., Plate VI. 



t Descr. de I'Egypte, Mem. of M. Dubois-Ayme, vol. xviii., App. p. 349, 350, 

 and Journal of M. Devilliers, ibid. 



X On the supposition that the increase in height of the land, at Cairo, is 36 

 feet English in 1000 years, the increase in the region of Bubastis would be 

 about 27 inches in the same time. For we may suppose that (costeris paribus) 

 the average amount of sedimentary matter deposited by running water in a 

 given place will be proportional to the depth of the water. At Cairo, in a good 

 inundation, the Nile swells to 24 feet above its lowest point. At Bubastis, it 

 swells to nearly 18. Therefore, were it not for secondary circumstances, which 

 rather tend to reduce the bulk of the deposits, the nearer the formations are to 

 the sea, the gain of land at Bubastis would be to that at Cairo as 3 to 4 ; and 

 the soil at Cairo, in the t'me of Necho, 617 b. c, being 90 inches lower than it 

 is now, the Nile accordingly must have risen there by so much less, with re- 

 spect to the invariable level of the Red Sea. According to this proportion, at 

 Bubastis, where Necho's canal began, the difference would be 67| inches, as 

 delineated in diagram A, Section 1., Plate V. 



But owing to the secondary circumstances above alluded to, (which need not 

 be detailed here), we are likely to be much nearer the truth if we allow the 

 gain to be less by about 16 inches, than strict computation would make it. 

 This is the standard adopted for the comparative proportions of the Nile exhi- 



