THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 70% 
{ wirt not perplex the rcader more with the different 
meafures of thefe peeks, between the Hafamean and great 
peek of Kalkafendas, which is 18 inches, and the black peek, 
a model of which Dr Bernard* has given us from an Arabic 
MS. at Oxford, the difference is 10 inches. The firt being 
18 inches equal to the Samian peek, the other 284 inches, 
and from this difference we may judge, joined to the un- 
certainties of the height and divifions of the Mikeas, how 
impoflible it is for us to determine the increafe of 12 inches 
in a hundred years. | 
As the generality of writers have fixed upon the Con- 
ftantinople, or Stambouline peek, for the meafure of the Mi- 
keas, in which choice they have erred, we will next feek 
what is the meafure of the Stambouline peek, and whether 
they have in this article been better informed. 
M. pe MAILieT, French conful at Cairo, fays, that this 
peek is equal to 2 French feet, or very nearly 26 inches of 
our meafure: and, to add to this another miftake, he ftates,. 
that by this peek the Mikeas is meafured; and, for the 
completing of the confufion, he adds, that the Nile mutt 
rife 48 French feet before it covers all their lands. What he 
-means by all their lands is to very little purpofe to inquire, 
for he would probably have been drowned in his. clofet in 
~ which he made thefe computations, long before he had 
feen the Nile at that height, or near it. 
Wirnour, then, wandering longer in this extraordinary 
eonfufion, which I have only ftated to fhew that a traveller 
4 may 
* Defcript. de "Egypte, p. 60. 
