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Notices of Egypt. 29 
ed abank, and from its top looked down, upon a broad mass of moving 
water. This wasthe Nile. In America, you meet with rivers eve- 
ry where, and they scarcely excite a sensation of any kind. Along 
the Mediterranean, however, they are so rare, that they become one 
of nature’s greatest wonders, and the sight of a large stream is really 
a gratification. 
The Nile is about as wide as the Connecticut at Middletown : the 
deepest boats I have seen on it, would require five feet water: the 
one in which we ascended drew about four, and yet we frequently 
grounded: in our descent, we gave ourselves up to the current, and 
thus, keeping more in the channel, we got along better. At this season, 
there is, regularly, a strong breeze up stream from morning till late 
in the evening: boats ascend by aid of sails, and unless they are in 
a hurry, descend simply by the force of the current. The water of 
the Nile, for drinking, deserves all the encomiums that have been 
passed upon it. It is agreeable to the palate, and so light and inno- 
cent, that, although we have used prodigious quantities of it, no one 
has been injured: the wealthier natives, after letting it settle, keep it 
in thin bottles of porous unglazed earth; these are put in cool pla- 
ces, and all drink indiscriminately, from the bottles themselves. 
The river is now rising and is about half flood, the water of a deep 
yellow color; last year it did not reach the usual height, and it is 
feared this will be the case the present year also, although the rise 
began earlier than usual. 
I have amused myself, whenever we have stopped, at a perpendic- 
ular bank, with examining the stratification of the earth. Whena 
fresh vertical fracture or break is made, it is easy to trace the depos- 
its of each successive year, by means of a lighter earth on the top 
of each, and when a bit is taken into the hand it may be easily made 
to separate, at those lines, into cakes; but on close examination, the 
edge of each of these will be often found to be marked by very del- 
icate thin lines, parallel to those where the separation has taken place. 
I have, several times, been struck with the strong resemblance 
between these delicate lines and those which you and I saw in the 
coal at Maunch Chunk and Wilkesbarre. Judging from these strata, 
the yearly deposits appear to vary very much, but will average a 
little more than a quarter of an inch. This corresponds also with 
what Mr. Trail, the superintendant of Ibrahim Pacha’s garden, on 
the Nile at Cairo, told me he considered the average deposit. 
I have put up specimens of the stratification, and hope to have the 
pleasure of presenting you with some of them. 
