315 



out doubt, that tbe Egyptians are sometimes obliged te 

 temper the soil by bringing sand to it.* 



But to return to the subject : as soon as advances 

 were made in civil architecture, every effort had a 

 direct tendency to promote and accelerate the eleva- 

 tion and extension of the soil ; since every house, or 

 binding, whether small or great, became an obstruc- 

 tion to the winds, around which, the sands, during the 

 windy seasons, were constantly accumulating. 



Nothing can be better calculated to strengthen this 

 opinion, and enforce the truth of the fact, than the ob- 

 servations of M Denon respecting Rosetta. 



" Its original compass," he says, " is ascertained by 

 the sand banks, by which it is covered from west to 

 south, and which have been formed by the walls and 

 towers that serve as a nucleus to those accumulated 

 heaps of sand."f 



When the lands had become sufficiently elevated to 

 justify the founding of a city ; the first step to be 

 taken, as we are informed by Dr. Shaw and others, 

 was the raising an artificial eminence of a height and 

 extent suited to the purpose ; and also a mound 

 around the whole, to secure the city from the inunda- 

 tions of the Nile. The city thus built, though se- 

 cured from the overflowing of the Nile, and annual 

 deposites of alluvion, was, nevertheless exposed to 

 the drifting sands from the surrounding plains and ad- 

 jacent deserts. But it may be presumed that, (as iu 



* Pocork's Travels, t Denon's Travel?, vol. I. page 140. 



