CHAPTER XL 



By no means so common and so extensive, tc. - 

 This declaration will doubtless be considered as 

 amounting almost to an insult, to the understandings 

 of observing men ; or, at least, a flagrant dereliction 

 from truth, and every principle of sound reasoning 

 and of established facts 5 in proof of which the Uel- 

 tas of the Po, the Arno, the Indus, the Tigris, the 

 Ganges, the Mississippi, and many others, but parti- 

 cularly the Delta of the Nile, will be considered as 

 affording unequivocal and irrefragable evidence. 



I am fully sensible of the powerful force that stands 

 arrayed against me, and of the numerous instances, in 

 various parts of the world, where it is supposed that 

 the Deltas of rivers have been formed exclusively by 

 the alluvion brought down, in the course of time, by 

 their currents, and deposited at their mouths : but I 

 am not disposed to shrink from the contest, though it 

 should end in defeat, since my only object is the deve- 

 lopement of truth, by a fair and candid exposition of 

 facts. 



That Deltas have been formed at the mouths of ma- 

 ny rivers, and, in some instances, to a very great 





