250 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



refped differed materially from the Pyramids, which, though works 

 very wonderful, were certainly not neceffary ; and it differed from 

 the Pyramids alfo in this refpedl, that the Pyramids were confined 

 to particular fpots, whereas this great work was all over the country. 

 The work I mean is, the building of fo many cities upon mounds 

 of earth, raifed above the overflowing of the river ; without which 

 the country could not have been inhabited for near one half of the 

 year, as Herodotus informs us *. Now what a labour it muft have 

 been to place not fmgle houfes, but cities, to the number of 20,000, 

 upon the tops of artificial mounds. How high thofe mounds mufl 

 have been, we may judge from what Herodotus tells us of the over- 

 flowing of the river, which, he fays, covered not only the Delta of 

 Egvpt, but fometimes a part of Lybia upon one fide, and of Ara- 

 bia on the other fide, and to the extent of two days journey on each 

 fidef : And more particularly he informs us, that, in his time, if 

 it did not rife 15 or 16 cubits at leafl, it did not cover the coun- 

 try X ; fo that the mounds, upon which the cities were built, muft 

 have been more than 24 feet high. When the river overflowed, 

 the whole of Egypt was a fea, and the cities only appeared ; which, 

 therefore, he compares to the Cyclade Iflands in the Ega:an Sea |j, 

 that is what we call the Archipelago Iflands. To this work of na- 

 ture, I think it was not improper to compare this greatefl, and, at 

 the fame time, moft ufeful, work of man. 



The next moft ufeful work of the Egyptians, and the mofl won- 

 derful too, was the Lake Mseris, which was about 400 Englifh miles 

 in circumference, and 50 fathoms deep wi.ere it was deepeft. This 

 lake received the waters of the Nile when it overflowed, and retain- 

 ed them when it retired: So that it was a refervoir for thofe waters, 



from 



* Lib. 2. cap. 19, 



•j- Ibidem. 



I Ibid. cap. 13. 



{1 Ibid. cap. 96. Diod. Siculus fays the fame thing. Lib. i. cap. 23. 



