310 



having any reference to the influence which the tides 

 may have had, in checking the current of the river, 

 but, on the contrary, admit that as much alluvion was 

 deposited at Memphis as at Thebes, we shall find, 

 that when the successive deposites of alluvion were 

 elevated to the surface of the water at Thebes, it would 

 still remain two and a half fathoms, or fifteen feet be- 

 low the surface at Memphis. And that when it had 

 gained the height of two and a half fathoms above the 

 river at Thebes, it would only have arrived at the sur- 

 face of the water at Memphis. 



This inequality or disproportion, if it depended on 

 the alluvion of the Nile, must necessarily have existed. 

 Consequently, such a wide extended marsh, as is said 

 to have spread over all Kgypt, except the province of 

 Thebes could never have been produced, and that 

 upon a uniform level, as the very name implies, by the 

 alluvion brought down and deposited hy the Nile. 



Hence it follows, that the materials in this work 

 must have been derived, in part from another source : 

 and that, too in a quantity sufficient to fill up the dif- 

 ference, whatever it might have been, in the depth of 

 water between Thebes and Memphis, or any other 

 two assumed points, in order to produce a level and 

 widely extended marsh. 



These materials will be found to have been derived 

 from the operation of, the winds on the desert of 

 Arabia, which lies on the east side of the Nile, be- 

 tween it and the Red sea, and the deserts of Lybia 

 and Barca on the west. 



