















7 

 ■ ft 





::. 



f dit 



P 



E I 



* rol 



Oi tic 



i not b 



- in a 



d to a 

 montk 

 i eracb 



r have 



id di; 



worms. 







e 



!li» 



■ m can 

 ■■-. even 

 notitt- 



11: 



dO tf 



Is. it i; 





Ch. XVIII.] 



DELT 



435 



filled by the Nile, in tlie same manner as the Meander, Aclie- 

 lous, and other streams, had formed deltas. Egypt, therefore 

 lie says, like the Red Sea, was once a long narrow bay, and 

 both gulfs were separated by a small neck of land. If the 

 Nile, he adds, should by any means have an issue into the 

 Arabian Gulf, it might choke it up with earth in 20,000 or 

 even, perhaps, in 10,000 years ; and why may not the Nile 

 have filled a still greater gulf with mud in the space of time 

 which has passed before our age ? ' * 



to the Royal Society in 1850 



Mr. Hor 



suggested 



m 



alluvial plain of the Nile, with a view of ascertaining the 

 thickness of the mud which had accumulated around the 



base of the obelisk at Heliopol 



and the pedestal of the 



statue of Rameses at Memphis, the object being to obtain a 

 chronometric scale, by ascertaining what thickness of sedi- 



ment had been formed 

 scale for 



time 



measuring 



the antiquity of similar mud 



pre- 



viously thrown down on the site of those monuments before 



I T ft A — — — 



their erection. 



lm 



made 



of the colossal statue of Rameses, the middle of 



reign, according to Lepsius, was 1361 years B.C. Assum- 



whose 



Mr. Hornerf 

 foundation c (fig. 30) was 14| 



. inches below the surface of 

 the ground, or alluvial flat a b, at the time it was laid, there 

 had been formed between that period and the year a.d.' 1850 

 or during a space of 3,211 years, a deposit of 9 feet 4 inches 



mean 



— r— ~ w-9 ttxxx^-lx ^ivw ct menu increase 

 oi 6 2 inches in a hundred years. It was further ascertained, 



shaft / 



tlie same place carried to the additional depth g h, that 



belo 



a/ 



Horner 



ment 



[mess of old Nile 

 ) 32 feet ; and it 

 the lowest layer 

 was found J was 



* Euterpe, XI. 



t Horner, On Alluvial Land of Egypt, Phil. Tr< 



ins. part i. for 1855 



FE'2 



