60 EEV. F. A. WALKER, D.D., F.L.S., ON 



Yet the sunlit bouldei-s of blue granite show to great 

 advantage, glistening withal as washed ever now and again 

 by the river's spray in the famous gorge of Kalabsheh, where 

 the Nile is only a thousand feet across at the narrowest part. 

 If we imagine the Nile to be introduced through the Valley 

 of Rocks at Lynton, Devon, with an accessory fringe of palm 

 trees, we shall better realise the aspect that one particular 

 portion of tlie gorge presents ; but anon the river widens, 

 and numerous islets, some studded with acacias and palm 

 trees, other smaller ones consisting of mere heaps of granite 

 boulders, meet our view in mid-stream. 



A stratum of tlie granite is also passed at the further end 

 of the valley of Syene before reaching the village of Mahat- 

 tah, witli its swarthy Nubian children. 



Description by Dean Stanley. 



'• The smooth casing of part of the top of the Second 

 Pyramid, and the magnificent granite blocks which form the 

 lower stages of the Third, serve to show w)iat they must have 

 been: all, from top to bottom — the First and Second — brilliant 

 white or yellow limestone smooth from top to bottom, instead 

 of those rude disjointed masses which their stripped sides now 

 present; the Third all glowing with the red granite from the 

 First Cataract. As it is, they have the barbarous look of 

 Stonehenge; but then they must have shone with the polish 

 of an age already rich with civilization, and that the more 

 remarkable when it is remembered that those granite blocks 

 which furnished the outside of the Third, and inside of the 

 First, must have come all the way from the First Cataract." 



TemiAe of the Sphinx, Nine Hundred Miles up the Nile, p. 89. 



" Its walls and vestibules all consist of huge blocks of red 

 granite from Assouan." 



L' Orient, p. 40. 



" A building constructed of immense blocks of red granite 

 from Assouan, one even measuring upwards of 18 feet in 

 length and seven in height. The skill, the labour, the cost 

 it must have taken to transport these massive and weighty 

 stones such a distance, and to polish their surface, and dove- 

 tail them into position with such perfect exactness and 

 precision, compel the tribute of our admiration." 



