NIL 
whither the king occafionally retreats, and where he has a pa- 
lace and ftore- 
NILIA CUM MeL, a name by which the ancients ex- 
preffed the very fineft honey. 
NILOMETER, or Nitoscorz, an inftrument ufed 
among the ancients to iets the height of the water of 
the river Nile, in its overflowings. 
Ths word comes from Nar, Nile (and that from ve. 
ive, new mud, or, as {ome others will have it, from vw. [ 
and ETP, meafure. The Greeks 
it 7 evnooxonsoy. tis called by the Ara- 
bians Aekias, denoting meafure. 
The ae eat is faid 2 feveral Arabian writers to have 
been firft fet up, for this purpofe, by Jofeph, during his 
regency in Euypt the meafure of it was fixteen cubits, this 
being the height of the increafe of the Nile, which was ne- 
ceffary to the a of Egypt. 
From the meafure of this column, Dr. Cumberland = 
duces an argum nee in order to prove that the Jewith a 
Egyptian cubit _ of ie fame length. Scripture Weigh 
a Scag p. I 
he ti 
Before the time of Petronius, as we learn 
from ee plenty was not known in the Delta unlefs the 
Nile rofe to 14 cubits. ook in Arabic ftill exifts, en- 
titled «« Nil fi alnel al Nil,”’ which contains a table of ree 
ria of the Nile from the firft beg of the Hegira (A 
622), down to the year 875 (A. D. 1470) ; and this work 
afcertains that in the latett més, as often as the Nile has 
14 cubits depth in its channel, there is a harvéft fufficient 
for the year ; that, if it reaches 16, there is peer for 
two years; but when it falls fhort of 14, or e 
famine enfues, and this account correfponds exaélly with, 
that of Herodotus. 
be known by thofe who confult the word Wile in the Bib- 
liotheque Orientale of D’ Herbelot, or the seal from Kal- 
kafendas, in Dr. Shaw’s Travels. ney obferves, that 
the meafure of thefe cubits is not uncertain. Fréret, 
D’Anville, and M. Bailli, have proved, that the Egyptian 
cubit, being invariably 24 digits, is equal to 20% French 
inches, an the e pr refent. cubit, called ¢€ ‘ Draa See is pre- 
nches. 
really at the height for plenty, and the multitude, always 
deceived by words, never fufpe&ted the impofition. But 
Arabian hiftorians, 
tell us, t he columns of the Saides or Uppe 
Egypt, gt nae to be divided: by 24 digits ; the 
Htc of 1 bits Sigcebe to the old reckoning) was 
always injurioue ; and that 1g was very rare, ee al. 
NIL 
moft a prodigy. Nothing, — is lefs certain than 
the progreflive ai here alleg: which are rendered 
ase bya own fact, ich is. aune in the long a 
18 centuries the rife o Nile never varied. 
ea is the prefent difference 3 ? How can it fo os have 
altered from 15 to 22 cubits, fince the year 147 This is 
owing, as Volney os Magni not to phyfical i but 
to other circumftances. It 1 is n t the Nile, but the column 
untry, ) 
t will be proper rikewife. to obferve, that the degrees of 
mune are not the fame through all Egypt, on the con- 
adual d river approaches 
i os At Affouan or Syene ‘the overflow is more confi- 
derable by one-fixth than at Grard Cairo ; and when the 
depth of water, at this latter city, is 27 feet, it is {carcely 
four at Rofettaand Damietta. "The reafon of this is, that 
‘befides the quantity of water Ree by the grounds, as 
it flews, the river, confined in one fingle bed, and ponas ks 
narrow aeeh rifes higher in the upper country ; wher 
when it paffed Cairo, being no longer obitruéted by ae 
Sonia pe {eparating into a great num tber of branches, 
it neceffarily lofes in depth what it acquires in furface. 
Volney’s Travels, vol. i. 
Herodotus mentions a column ereéted in a point of the 
ifland of Delta, to ferve as a Nilometer: and there is ftill 
a of the fame kind in a mofque of the fame place. 
aoe ba the point of the ifle of Raouda is thus 
deferibed by Sav It is a lofty pillar of marble in the 
middle of a pata. ‘the bottom of which is on a level with the 
bed of the Nile. 
o 
on which refts a beam, that fs a gallery, crowns this 
column. When the inundation commences, the pia en- 
ter the a by a conduit ; 
he governors of E 
this ias_ was overturned, and the caliph ordered another 
to be ereéted in the ifland between Foftat é ne 
sense and forty years after, this Nilometer fell, and sti 
mper >» Wi 
was called the ** New Mekias.”? This Nilometer “is aoe 
exiftin 
As all the riches of Egypt arife from the inundations of 
the Nile, the Egyptians ufed to aati them at the hands 
of their Serapis ; and committed the moft ex le crimes, 
as actions forfooth of eietn,. to obtain the — This 
cafioned 
