158 SPARKS FROM A GEOLOGIST'S HAMMER. 



Nile and a greater part of the desert of Sahara have 

 been the bed of the Mediterranean within the human 

 epoch. Aristotle refers to the growth of the Nilotic delta 

 in his own times ; and Strato and Strabo recognize the 

 probability that it had been covered, in times not very 

 remote, by the waters of the Mediterranean. Herodotus 

 says that in the time of Menes the valley of the Nile 

 was a swamp below Thebes, and he expresses the opinion 

 that " the country above Memphis seems formerly to have 

 been an arm of the sea." All this is sustained by the 

 salinity of the water still retained in the deeper deposits 

 of the delta. Not only the delta but extensive sand-cov- 

 ered regions to the west are generally admitted to have 

 been in comparatively modern times the bed of the sea. 

 When recently drained, many parts of this ancient sea- 

 bottom probably presented, like ancient Lectonia and the 

 prairies of Illinois, a soil of high fertility, which sustained 

 human populations during the lifetime of a nation; but, 

 like other continental surfaces which have fulfilled their 

 part in the sustentation of a race, the Egyptian and 

 Libyan plains have deteriorated to a limit beneath the 

 needs of civilization, and civilization has sought out fresher 

 areas on which to continue its march. 



The traditions of every nation preserve the memory of 

 a widespread and destructive deluge. One such deluge 

 occurred in the Orient, and swept off the contemporary 

 populations. Our biblical records assert that " the waters 

 prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days," 

 that they covered elevated mountains, and that all living 

 creatures in the country (hddrets, the whole region) per- 

 ished. Berosus, the Chaldee historian, speaks of a general 

 deluge in the time of Xithuthrus; and this testimony is 



