DEL 
to-a-competent mites of ag amen he went to Paris to. 
rofeffors in rhetoric and philofophy. 
be inftructed by able 
and Louvain to ftudy the 
the degree of doctor conferred on him by the univerfity of Sa- 
Jamanca. On his return into the Low Countries he filled fome 
civil offices of honour and emolument; al psa = ee 
out of the wars in Fianders, he took a int 
Spain, when he entered himfelf among eis Valladolid, 
in the year 1580. In a few years he was ordered by his fupe- 
riors into the ow Countries, to teach phvolophy, the jau- 
guages, and theology. At Louvain he contra an inti- 
macy with the on a Lipfius. Here he died in 
Otober 160 $ an author = is chiefly kn y his 
6s Difquilitiones Magice,”’ in three vols. 4to. publified in 
1601. e publifhed ieee commenta 
of the Oid and New Teftaments ; ee pees 
e of the genuinenefs of the books attributed 
to Dio yfius, the Arcopagite, againft the criticifms of Sca- 
liger. In the early part of life he publifhed notes on 
Claudian, on the tragedie es of Seneca, together with 
fome treatifes on law. Mo 
Spiritu Sant 
into ce gulf of Mexico, at the N. 
of Florida. 
DELTA, the name given to a conliderable part of Lower 
Egypt, on account of its ee figure, which refembles 
the Greeks rae AL The 
was anciently co 
and the Melia ah fea. 
oF Memphis, or at a place where ae ftood a town of 
** Cercefura,”? now called * Bat akara the cow’s 
i the Nile feparated into ae ae ipa al bra ach 
nopic branch to the weft, which falls into aie fea ne 
ra and the Pelufian to the ca _ difcharges itfelfinto 
h r of thefe branches taking 
he name of * thos- 
zemon flu ood genius; and ter- 
minated to the eaft of Canopus, after having watered Schedia, 
w ich was fituated at the mouth called ‘*Canopicum O[- 
tum, latter branch, whofe courfe was north-eatt, 
was walled ‘* Athribiticus fluvius,’? becaufe it watered the 
town of “ Athribis,” and difcharged itfelf into the fea, near 
Pelufium, at the mouth denominated ** Pelufiacum Oftium.” 
‘The {pace cotaprehended between thefe two branches was 
divide ed i into two others ; one called Delta, which comprifed 
the Agathofdemon and the continua- 
QO, os Geography, a river which falls 
W. end of the peniafula 
= 
fee ce 
north of ears as far as Pelafiun, was called dear 
parvus.”? ‘Che firft of thefe Deltas contained the to of 
Pro ‘onitia aula, Satz, Buhris, Xois, Sebenythus, Oiaphis 
Pachnamunis, Butus, and } 
d Sethrum, together with 
W als of nomes. Con 
fidering, fays major 
otus examined and explained,”’ the 
Delta; the quality of its foil ona is meee different 
from that of the adjacent countries; its form which prpleets 
the one hand 
reafoning from appearances, 
fea: one can hardly doubt, ae the fpace which it occupies 
- 
DEL 
was originally a part of the fea, from the neighbourhood of 
Pelufium, or of mount Cafius, to that of Alexandria; and 
fouthward to the foot of the hills of the pyramids, and of 
Mokattam ; which is allowing little more for the depth of 
the bay, from the {uppofed line of the coaft, than the lower 
point o elta now advances beyond it. Without 
doubt when we carry back ovr ideas-to the time when the 
fea wathed the bafe of the rock, on- whic 
e 
e 
© 
of the De 
To the natural progre oF alavion, oe depo is 
acquire a mafs capable of “epaati the nt river 
nto different channels, by an apex ; ae the Eaes {pread - 
ie wider as they recede from ‘Mis point, the newly emerged 
land affumes a triangular form. Its bafe gradually enlarges 
“by new depofitions; the mafs, as it acquires a firmer 
confiftence, confines the river to fewer chasnels ; and the 
times eae to a diftant and 
shears era. The fite . the centre ae eee Memphis is 
placed by Mr. Rennell i nopic, or mo 
faken its bed, and to papel the Bolbitine a w men 
was espe an ian on y this change, 
s been contracted about 1 g mile of the we 
bate ; 3 and “his i is eee as bar 
one of Libya. 
been formed by the accumulation 
quence of the periodical aeidene of the Nile, is now very 
generally received by naturalifts ; though it is liable to fome 
very {trong objeCiions from chronology, which are not eafily 
folved. If the fea ever wathed the rock on which 
Another phyfical silane occurs of itill greater 
weight. here was a time when the 
was nearly on a level with the ie : ce is now 
that level, not by the retroceffion of that jonat be by the 
acceffion of height gained by the land in confequence of the 
depofitions of t a Nile, according to the ‘opinion a ftated. 
, then, that when the city of Memphis and 
unded, the fite was 40 
level of the fea ; in the cae. Memphis, the pyramids, 
courfe, many of the cities of ancient Egypt, would now be 
40 feet under ground ;—a fuppofition not warranted by fact. 
in the time of Moeris, who ‘is faid to have lived 500 years 
before the Trojan war, the Delta a scared in its infancy. 
Eight cubits were then fufficient to overflow it in its whole 
extent. Boats paffed over it from one extremity to the other, 
and its towns, built on artificial elevations, refembled the 
iflands of the Afgean fea. (Herodotus, Euterpe. Strabo, 
lib. xvii.) When Herodotus vifited Egypt, 15 cubits were 
neceflary to cover all the Lower Egypt, but the Nile then 
29° 53 
eee an h of the Nile, is fuppofed _ ne Sage for« - 
. of . he pyramids - 
eet above . 
eet gs oe the — 
£ 
overflowed the country for the {pace of two days’ journey, . 
to the night and left of the Dehta. Under the Roman em. 
pire, 15 cubits produced the fame effeét. 
domination of rhe Ara 
the mo favourable height.. Eighteen cubits. are at this 
Ge 
8, their writers {peak of 17 cubits as - 
