CHAP. XI. HNCHOACIIMENT OF THE SAND. IJ^ 



confirming what I have stated, as might be reason- 

 ably expected, since the same causes necessarily 

 produce the same effects ; and I now proceed to 

 show the origin of those erroneous notions which 

 proclaim that the drifting sands have curtailed the 

 limits of the arable land of Egypt, and that the 

 desert constantly encroaching on the soil threatens 

 to overwhelm the valley of the Nile, and already 

 counteracts the beneficial effects of the inundation.* 

 In some parts of Egypt, as at Bahnasa, at 

 Kerdassy, a little to the N. of the Pyramids, at 

 Werdan, and at a few other places, the sand of 

 the Libyan desert has been drifted into the valley, 

 and has encumbered the land with hillocks and 

 downs, spreading itself over the fields near the 

 edge of the desert, and sometimes burying trees 

 and buildings to the depth of several feet. This 

 has been particularly the case about Bahnasa ; and 

 Denon, who visited it and witnessed the effect of 

 the sand in that quarter, spread the alarm of its 

 invasion, which has been magnified into the anni- 

 hilation of the arable land of Egypt. But this evil 

 is only partial, and, as M. Reynier observes, in a 

 memoir upon the agriculture of Egypt, published 

 in the great French workt, "though many have 

 spoken of the encroachments of the sand upon the 

 cultivable soil, it appears to be much less consider- 

 able than is supposed ; for otherwise many places 

 indicated by ancient writers to have been on the 

 borders of the desert, would now be distant from 



* Vide Vol. I. p. 2.>1. 

 f Memoires sur I'Kgypte, vol. iv. p. 6. 

 VOL. I. — Sf.coni) Series.' I 



