THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 659 
according to the tenor of his ways and wifdom, to create a 
country like Egypt, without f{prings, or even dews, and fub- 
ject it to a nearly vertical fun, that he might fave it by fo 
extraordinary an intervention as was the annual inunda- 
tion, and make it che moft fertile {pot of the univerfe. 
Turs violent effort feemed to be too great, above all propor- 
tion, for the end for which it was intended, and thecaufe was 
therefore thought to merit the application of the fublimeft 
philofophy ; and accordingly,as Diodorus Siculus * tells us, 
it became the ftudy of the moft learned men of the firft-ages, 
the principal of whom, with their opinions, he quotes, and at 
the fame time alledges the reafon why they were not univer- 
fally received. The firft is Thales of Miletum, one of the feven 
fages, who afligns for the caufe the Etefian winds, which 
blowing, all the hot feafon, from the Mediterranean, in con- 
trary direction to the ftream of the river, force the Nile to 
accumulate, by-obflructing its flowing to the fea, occafion it 
to rife above its banks, and confequently to overflow the 
country. = 
Bur to this it was anfwered, That, were this the caufe, all 
rivers running in a northern direction, to the fea, would be 
fubject to the fame accident; and this it was known they 
‘were not. And we may further add, that were this really 
the caufe, the inundation of the Nile would be very irre- 
gular; for the winds at this feafon often blow from the 
fouth-weft for two or three days together, and then the in- 
undation would be interrupted. To this it muft be added, 
that a pete confiderable part of Egypt, and that the moft 
402 fertile, 
* Diod. Sic. lib: i. 
