Nov. 18, 1869 | 
NATORE 
83 
numerous and too exact to leave room for doubt. “By 
this means,” writes Captain Spratt, “I was enabled to 
trace the extent of the Nile’s influence both directly off 
the coast and along it, as well as to ascertain the large 
quantity of sand—pure silicious sand—it must annually 
bring to the sea ; and to an amount which far exceeded 
my expectations and experience in respect to other rivers, 
particularly that of the Danube, which, in comparison, 
brings a very much less proportion of sand to mud. The 
Danube sand, also, is of the finest quality. The Nile 
sand, on the contrary, is much coarser generally, and 
forms sandbanks off the coast that are composed of 
quartzose sand nearly as large as mustard seed.” 
The quantity of solid matter brought down by the Nile 
when in flood is prodigious, and precisely at this season 
—that is, for three or four months—the north-west winds: 
blow strongest. Indeed, if the wind did not blow with 
the violence of a monsoon it would be impossible for 
sailing-vessels to navigate the river during the time of its 
rise. The suspended matter is consequently driven to the 
eastward along the coast, and there accumulating forms 
dunes or sandhills, which shift their position with every 
gale, “burying at times the huts of the coastguard men.” 
The hollows between the dunes are cultivated by the 
Arabs, but the plots must be protected by screens of reeds, 
against which the sand accumulates by repetition, until in 
some instances the hill is a hundred feet in height. Cap- 
tain Spratt here remarks: “ The best efforts of a popula- 
tion of several thousand Arabs, who inhabit the villages 
along this strip of land, fail in permanently fixing these 
dunes. For as the sea continually reaccumulates the sand 
upon the beach, onward it moves, in spite of those 
efforts, and the rate of progress may be imagined when I 
state that a mosque near Brulos has in about twelve 
months been nearly buried in one of the dunes” adyanc- 
ing from the westward. “And asthe coarse sand of which 
these hills are composed is not distinguishable in differing 
from the sands of the desert near the Pyramids, or that on 
the route to Suez, they must undoubtedly be all the gifts 
of the Nile.” 
Besides coarse sand the Nile carries down fragments of 
brick, pottery, and other heavy substances, which are also 
drifted along the coast by the combined action of wind 
and current. When the wind blows its strongest the 
coastguard men say they cannot walk against it. To test 
these facts, Captain Spratt one day landed eleven bags of 
ashes and clinkers, five of the bags containing pure 
clinkers, the largest of which weighed from four to five 
pounds. The whole were laid ina heap just above the 
water’s edge, and left to the care of wind and sea. 
Twelve days later, when the party returned, not a vestige 
of the heap, which had weighed nearly two tons, was to 
be seen. The shore was examined towards the quarter 
from which the wind blew, but without result ; while in 
the other direction, that of the prevailing wave move- 
ment, clinkers weighing about two ounces were found 
dispersed to a distance of fully 1,500 yards, one of 3} 
pounds was picked up at 240 yards, and others from 4 to 8 
ounces at from 600 to 700 yards. The greater portion 
had, however, been buried by the movement of the sand. 
“Thus this evidence,” writes Captain Spratt, “of the 
movement of the beach in only twelve days, in the month 
of May, during which there was but one strong westerly 
breeze and several fresh easterly breezes, is a positive evi- 
dence of the great easterly movement of the shore and 
littoral shallows along this coast, but which, during a 
succession of winter gales, and during the prevailing 
north-west breezes at the period of high Nile, must cause 
a continuous progression of an immense quantity of the 
sands and matter carried out by the turbid river.” 
We quote another passage bearing on this point. The 
captain was walking along the coast for the purpose of 
observation, from the beacon marking the site of Port 
Said, to the head of the bay of Tineh, when he found a 
great quantity of broken pottery, broken jars, ancient and 
modern, and broken bricks scattered on the shore, at the 
highest and lowest surf margin. “On discovering them 
in such quantity,” he continues, “ I was naturally anxious 
to trace out their origin, thinking they must have come 
from some adjacent ruin. But I found eventually that 
they had come wholly from the mouths of the Nile, and 
that they were the positive déérzs from the towns situated 
on the banks of the river, and brought out by the strength 
of the current at high Nile, but then dispersed along the 
coast to the eastward by its littoral currents and _prevail- 
ing ground swell.” 
It would be easy to multiply facts, if further evidence 
were wanted, that the Nile is no exception in the great 
transforming powers of Nature, washing down the dry 
land into the sea, and forming there beneath and on the 
margin of the waves new continents and islands. The 
Mississippi, the Ganges, the Yang-tse-Kiang, and other 
rivers of the great continents, carry down millions of tons 
of solid matter every year. The North Sea is gradually 
being silted up by the rivers of Belgium, Holland, and 
the British islands. At the mouth of the Ebro, on the 
northern side of the Mediterranean, the deposits brought 
down by the river are in course of reclamation by an 
eminent English engineer. Hence we need not feel sur- 
prise that the Nile—one of the greatest of rivers—has 
during long ages wrought great changes on the southern 
shores of the same sea. In the face of facts such as are 
above adduced, a government or a nation might well be 
justified in believing the project of a harbour and canal on 
the Bay of Pelusium to be, if not impossible of execution, 
at least unprofitable. Places which were on the shore 
when Strabo wrote are now from four to six miles inland, 
as is shown on the accompanying map, reduced from that 
published with Captain Spratt’s report; and this modifying 
action is still going on. 
Since the Suez canal was first projected engineering 
science has advanced ; and though the sands will accu- 
mulate at Port Said as from of old, the piers and_break- 
waters will be periodically lengthened, made to stretch 
further and further into the sea, while powerful steam- 
dredges will scrape away the sand from the mouth of the 
harbour. Whether heavy gales will effect any more 
serious choking of the approaches, or drift tons of blowing 
sand into the canal itself remains to be seen. But while 
the world is greeting, and worthily greeting, the great 
work as a triumph of engineering skill, it may be well, 
at the same time, to bestow a little thought on the facts 
and conclusions here brought under notice, which in the 
pre-scientific age rendered man’s contests against the 
works of the winds and sea perfectly hopeless. 
MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 
ie the last number of S7//zman’s Fournad is an account 
of this year’s meeting of the American Association, 
held at Salem, under the presidency of Mr. J. M. Foster, of 
Chicago, which seems to have passed off as pleasantly and 
usefully as did our own at Exeter. Over one hundred 
and fifty new members were elected. The number of 
communications entered upon the daily programmes of 
the Standing Committee was about one hundred and 
fifty. The range of these papers was considerable, and 
it was found expedient to have sub-sections on Archze- 
ology and Microscopy, to facilitate the disposal of papers 
which could not be reached in the other sections. 
The then recent total eclipse of the sun was naturally 
a prominent subject of interest ; the astronomers being 
present in considerable force. 
The dedication of the Peabody Academy of Science 
was an occasion worthy to occupy the attention of the 
Association at its opening session. A few notes on this 
Academy will be welcome to many readers. The Institution 
