ON THE CLIMATE OF EGYPT IN ANCIENT TIMES. 9S 



of the exogenous ones have been classitied, and a species of endogenous, 

 tree has also been discovered, which was described by the late Sir Richard 

 Owen in a letter (Sejotember 27th, 1875) to Dr. Gi-ant Bey as being 

 '^ nndouhtedhi palm" but it has not yet been further chissified. 



^ The sand was formed ultimately from the crystalline rocks of the- 

 interior, and proximately from the waste of the Nubian sandstone, and 

 the sandy upper Eocene beds. The thickness of the Miocene sandstone 

 stratum would be about 100 feet (Dawson). 



'" The igneous rocks at Aboo-Zabel about 11 miles north of Cairo belong 

 to this period of the geysers, or perhaps even a little later (Dawson). 



•^ At Het-el-Qorab hill a little to the south of the Great Pyramid, and 

 at an elevation of 40 feet above the plain, there is an old sea beach of the 

 Pleistocene period. 



■ Sir J. William Dawson inclines however to the water rather than the ice 

 agency. In fact there is no trace in the geological history of Egypt of 

 thei'e ever having been the cool summers necessary for the formation and 

 continuance of a glacial period. 



8 At the present day the shell fish of the Eed Sea are quite distinct 

 from those of the Mediterranean. 



^ It mu.st have been during the existence of this sea that it was possible 

 for the mammoth to live in Siberia, as such a large inland body of water 

 must have much modified the climate around it. 



" In Strabo's time (24 B.C.) the Red Sea extended but to the north end 

 of the Bitter Lakes, and that only by means of a canal originally dug by 

 Darius Hystaspis (520 B.C.) from the south end of the Bitter Lake to the 

 Red Sea, about 10 miles in length. 



" Prehistoric as far as Egypt is concerned. 



B, Climate of Egypt ix Prehistoric Time. 



The Prehistoric Period of Egypt was preceded by the 

 formation of the present Nile and the fliiviatile deposits that 

 have made the country rich and inhabitable. This took 

 place only about 8,000 or 9,000 years ago.^ 



The Nile, however, did not find its way to the Medi- 

 terranean without encountering formidably obstacles in the 

 shape of ciystalline rocks, granite and sandstone dykes, and 

 calcareous beds, which one by one were either swept before 

 it at once, or else the pent-up water formed large lake 

 districts, and overflowed the obstacles as cataracts. Most 

 of these have become gradually rubbed down," and form 

 now only rapids. Some of them, however, were broken 

 through, suddenly causing a regular deluge in the lower- 

 country ; and several of these floods must have taken place 

 in historic times, for when Solon visited Egypt, about 

 GOO B.C. and asked the Egyptian priests if they had in their 



