130 



less than an inch ; and consequently, the same period of time would 

 be represented by very different degrees of thickness of the sediment. 



.Two pits were sunk close to the fallen colossal statue, sections of 

 both of which are given. In the deepest, the shaft was continued to 

 the depth of 24 feet 5 inches, when further progress was stopped by 

 filtration water. This interruption to excavations occurred in every 

 other pit that was sunk. From the bottom of the shaft, a boring 

 tool was applied, and cores of soil were brought up from successive 

 depths, the lowest being 41 feet 4| inches from the surface of the 

 ground. The sections given of the two pits in this locality show, that 

 the soil consists of varieties of loam and sand in irregularly alternating 

 layers ; and the Nile sediment from the lowest part of the boring was 

 found, by a careful analysis, to be nearly identical in composition 

 with that deposited by the inundation of the present day. At a 

 depth of 5 feet 8 inches from the surface of the ground they came 

 upon the upper surface of the platform on which the colossus had 

 stood, consisting of two courses of cyclopean masonry, together 

 5 feet 6 inches thick, resting on an artificial bed of sand, the sand 

 resting on Nile sediment. Throughout the excavation various ob- 

 jects of art and some bones of domestic animals were met with, and 

 the boring instrument brought up from the lowest depth a fragment 

 of pottery. 



The author next proceeds to describe, with references to detailed 

 sections, seventeen pits and borings sunk in the area of Memphis, 

 and also a series of seven pits opened in ground below the inundation 

 level of 1851, in a line across the valley from the foot of the Libyan 

 Hills on the west of the Nile, to the skirt of the Arabian Hills on 

 the east of the river, embraced within an area of about five miles 

 from west to east, and a mile from north to south. 



In 1854 another series of pits and borings were sunk in the parallel 

 of Heliopolis, above eight miles above the apex of the Delta, in 

 ground below the inundation level of 1853, which was very nearly 

 the same as that of 1851, the line including fifty-one pits in a 

 distance of about sixteen miles, eight miles on the right, and eight 

 miles on the left bank of the river ; two of them near the river were 

 carried to a depth of 50 feet, and one to a depth of 60 feet from the 

 surface of the ground. This last reached to within 1\ inches of the 

 mean level of the Mediterranean. 



