301 



through a Ions; lapse of ages, as well with the delta as 

 the districts on the opposite borders of the Nile. 



Dr. Shaw, who has been as particular on this point 

 as almost any other author, has endeavoured to prove 

 and that too by a diagram, that the whol* extent of 

 territory which Egypt has, gained, in the course 

 of time, is almost exclusively the result of the alluvion 

 brought down by the Nile and gradually deposited. 

 In this, the circumstances which he relates, and the 

 arguments which he has advanced, are at variance 

 with his theory, which, under existing circumstances, 

 all the ingenuity and sophistry of man can never 

 establish. 



" Let the annexed figure (says Dr. Shaw) be a 



section of this valley, with 

 a Niloscope placed in that 

 part of it, where the Nile af- 

 terwards directed its stream. 

 For about the space of 

 one or two centuries after 

 the deluge, or till such time as the mud brought down 

 by the inundation, was sufficiently fixed and accumu- 

 lated to confine the river, we may imagine the bottom 

 of this valley A B, (i. e. the whole land of Egypt) to 

 have been entirely overflowed ; or else, being in the 

 nature of a morass, was not fit to be either cultivated, 

 or inhabited. Egypt therefore, at this time, was in a 

 proper condition to receive the assistance of Osiris, 

 who by raising mounds and collecting the icater into 

 a proper channel, kept the river from stagnating, and 



