5;4 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



the quantity of mud which the Nile brought down by its 

 inundation, which fo covered the land-marks, that no 

 proprietor knew or could difcover the limits of his own 

 farm, and that this annual neceftity firft gave rife to the 

 fcience of Geometry *. How or when Geometry was firft 

 known and praftifed, is not my bufinefs in this place to 

 inquire, though T think the origin here given is a very 

 probable one. The land of Egypt was certainly meafured" 

 annually : it is as certainly fo at this very time ; and if fo, the 

 prefent reafon for this is probably the very one which firft 

 gave rife to it ; but that this is not owing to the mud of the 

 Nile, will appear on the ilighteft confideration ; for if Egypt 

 increafe a foot in a hundred years, one year's increafe of foil 

 could be but the one hundredth part of a foot, which could 

 hide no land<mark whatever; and we fee to this day thofe 

 in Egypt were huge blocks of granite often with gigantic 

 heads at the end of them; which the Nile, at the rate Hero- 

 dotus fixes, of a foot in 100 years, as being added to the foil,, 

 would not cover in feveral thoufand years, 



It is abfurd to fuppofe that the Nile is to bringdown: 

 an equal quantity of foil-every year from the mountains 

 of Abyffinia ;, whatever was the cafe at firft when this river 

 began to flow, we are fure now, that almoft every ri- 

 ver and brook in Abyflinia runs in a bed of hard flone, . 

 the earth having been long removed ; and the rivers now 

 cannot furniih from their rocky beds what they firft did 

 from their earthy bottoms, when Egypt was fuppofed, ac- 

 cording to Herodotus, to have its foundation laid in the 



floods ; 



**Herod, lib. ii. p. 127. feft. 109. 



