Chap.XlI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 247 



that change of weather, which, as the fame author obferves, affeds 

 the human body fo much, ami produces fo many difeafes. 



Their river was ftill more wonderful than their fky; for there may 

 perhaps be other climates as good as that of Egypt, but there is no 

 river, known, like the Nile, or which has produced fo wonderful 

 an efFedi as the produdtion of a great country ; I mean the Delta ^ 

 which, as Herodotus tells us, was the gift of the river : And not 

 only has produced it, but, by annually overflowing it and the Up- 

 per Eg}'pt, lias made them both the moft fruitful countries in the 

 world. Other rivers by overflowing only water the foil, and pre- 

 vent the bad eflfeds of exceflfive drought ; whereas the Nile not only 

 waters the foil, but annually renews it, by bringing from ^Ethiopia 

 a very rich earth, which it depofits upon the plains of Egypt, while 

 it Aagnates. Nor do I think it is polfible, that, without fuch renew- 

 al, Egypt could have maintained fo many millions of people for fe 

 many thoufand years, nor have invented fo many arts and fciences, 

 and by their colonies propagated them to fo many countries. For 

 the fame foil, however good, muft be exhaufted at laft by continu- 

 ed cropping for a great number of years, notwithftarKling any dung 

 we can give it; for we carry off, in every crop, more of the vegetable 

 earth than w^ can add to it by the richefl: dunging; and of what re- 

 mains we exhauft at laft the feminal virtue. I was told by a gen- 

 tleman employed by Government to fur\^ey the Weft India Iflands, 

 which we took from the French in the war before the laft, that he 

 was informed, that fome of thefe Iflands, when they were firft cul- 

 tivated, produced 20 crops of fugar without dung or changing the 

 plant; whereas in our Ifland of Barbadoes, which has been very- 

 long in culture, they miift dung and change the plant every year. 

 Paleftine, which was once a moft fruitful country, and maintained 

 a prodigious number of inhabitants, is now fo much exhaufted, that 

 it is little better than a fandy defert. 



The 



