323 



position of alluvion, which, in time, has produced this 

 eflect. 



But I should impute it to a very diflerent cause. 

 The winds that sweep over these trackless regions to 

 the west, laden with sand, naturally let fall, or depo- 

 site the greatest quantity at the immediate termination 

 of the eastern borders of the deserts. As they were 

 carried farther on, the quantity let fall would lessen in 

 proportion to the distance passed over : so that, by the 

 time they had reached the eastern side of the delta, 

 (which at its base is sixty-one miles in breadth,) they 

 would have deposited nearly, or quite all the sand thus 

 brought from the deserts on the west ; in the same 

 manner as a river that flows into the sea or a lake, 

 deposites its alluvion in the greatest quantity immedi- 

 ately at its mouth, and gradually diminishing as it ad- 

 vances into the sea. And, in the same manner, as the 

 sands taken up from the land by the winds, and car- 

 ried over a bay or sea, arc let fall as the wind loses 

 its force. 



Hence it is, most probably, that the eastern and 

 lower part of the delta, which depends mostly on the 

 sands brought by the easterly winds, or Levanters, 

 across the Isthmus, or desert lying between the Nile 

 and the Ked Sea, which is comparatively narrow, is 

 lower and less perfectly formed, than the districts fur- 

 ther west and nearer the deserts. 



From this view, we need not wonder why the lands 

 on the lower and western part of Egypt, should be, 

 more perfectly formed, and increase faster, than those 



