NEWBOLD ON THE GEOLOGY OF EGYPT. 327 
It has been supposed by some travellers that the valley called the 
Waterless river is nothing more than an ancient channel of the Nile, 
or, in part, an artificial work executed by the ancient Egyptians for 
receiving the waters of the river*. This singular valley is about six 
or seven miles broad, extending in a north-westerly direction from 
the west bank of the lake Meeris. It leads towards the Mediterra- 
nean, in the vicinity of the Mareotis lake, passing the western boun- 
dary of the alluvium of the delta in a direction almost parallel. 
Its sides are formed of low calcareous ridges and sand-hills. The 
bottom is covered with sand and a gravel consisting principally of 
rolled fragments of quartz, jasper, Egyptian pebble, “petr osilex, and 
silicified wood, among which Andreossy discovered rolled stones 
from the primary ranges of Upper Egypt. ‘The Abbé Sicard, and 
even more modern travellers, have asserted that petrified masts and 
wrecks of vessels occur in this gravel; but the specimens of petrified 
wood that have been brought thence resemble strongly those from 
the formation near Cairo. 
No trace has been hitherto discovered in this valley of the rich 
dark-coloured alluvium that has from the earliest periods of history 
been deposited by the Nile in its course through Egypt, or of the 
mud usually thrown down by lakes or reservoirs of fresh water, facts 
strongly militating against the theories of this valley having been a 
receptacle for the superabundant waters of the Nile, or of its being 
hollowed out by the ancient stream of the river pursuing this course 
towards the Mediterranean. With regard to the present valley 
through which the Nile flows, I have little doubt of its having been 
enlarged and modified by the continued, though varied, action of the 
stream through a lapse of ages. I have myself witnessed during the 
rise of the river large masses of rock, particularly on the eastern 
bank, dislodged and precipitated into the eddying waters below. 
The fact of the rocks on the eastern flank of the Nile being usually 
more scarped and abrupt than those of the opposite or Libyan bank, 
may be attributed probably to the greater encroachment of the Nile 
on the former. 
Drainage.—The system of natural drainage of the country is re- 
markably simple ; but little rain, as is well known, falls in Central 
and Upper Egypt, and the supply of springs is extremely scanty. 
The greater portion of rain-water is absorbed by the thirsty sands of 
the desert, percolating and smking through them until collected in 
some natural basin, like the oases, having an impervious bottom ; 
the rest, after diminution by evaporation, which is very great, passes 
off on the eastern side of the great anticlinal axis already mentioned, 
by transverse cracks in the aqueous rocks to the Red Sea; and on 
its western side by similar cracks running in an opposite direction to 
the valley of the Nile. The Libyan desert, on the western bank of 
the Nile, is similarly drained into this great hollow, which runs with 
a gentle slope northerly to the Mediterranean. After all, the total 
amount of water carried into the Red Sea and the Nile from the 
surface of Egypt is exceedingly small. The rain-channels are dry 
) * Clot Bey, Apercu générale sur Egypte, vol. i. p. a . , 
B 
