311 



It will, perhaps, be said, that the valley or space on 

 earh side of the river below Thebes is too narrow to 

 afford a sufficient quantity of materials to cause any 

 sensible difference, admitting it to be dry and barren. 



However that may be, it is said that the distance 

 from the river to the hills is eighteen miles or " six 

 leagues." making the valley twelve leagues in breadth, 

 or thirty-six mi es, sometimes less ; and this too. near- 

 ly all the way from the cataracts "* 



Besides this, a great portion of the Lybian range of 

 mountains in this part of the country are represented 

 as barren, and in a rapid state of decomposition. " I 

 had seen (says Mr. Denon) two ranges since I left 

 Cairo, without having been able to risk climbing any 

 one of them. I found this, as I had supposed, a ruin 

 of nature, formed of horizontal and regular strata of 

 calcareous stones more or less crumbling, and of dif- 

 ferent shades of whiteness, divided at intervals with 

 large mammillated and concentric flints, which appear 

 to be the nuclei, or, as it were, the bones of this vast 

 chain, and seem to keep it together, and prevent its 

 total destruction. This decomposition is daily happen- 

 ing by the impression of the salt air, which penetrates 

 every part of the calcareous surface, decomposes it, 

 and makes it, as it were, dissolve down in streams of 

 sand, which at first collected in heaps at the foot of 

 the rocks, and are carried away by the winds, and en- 

 croaching gradually on the cultivated plains and the 



* bhaw's Travels, page 341. 



