745 



of the Delta. The Arabian geographers assert, 

 that in Sennaar and in Abyssinia the Nile 

 begins to swell in the month of April (nearly as 

 the Oroonoko) ; the rise however does not be- 

 come sensible at Cairo till toward the summer 

 solstice; and the water attains it's greatest 

 height at the end of the month of September *. 

 The river keeps at the same level till the middle 

 of October ; and is at it's minimum in April and 

 May, a period when the rivers of Guyana begin 

 to swell anew. It may be seen from this rapid 

 statement, that, notwithstanding the retardation 

 caused by the form of the natural channels, and 

 by local climatic circumstances, the great phe- 

 nomenon of the oscillations of the rivers of the 

 torrid zone is every where the same. In the two 

 zodiacs vulgarly called Tatar and Chaldean, or 

 Egyptian, (in the zodiac which contains the 

 sign of the Rat, and in that which contains those 

 of the Fishes and Aquarius,) particular constel- 

 lations are consecrated to the periodical over- 

 flowings of the rivers. Real cycles, divisions of 

 time, have been gradually transformed into di- 

 visions of space ; but the generality of the phy- 

 sical phenomena of the risings seems to prove, 

 that the zodiac which has been transmitted to us 

 by the Greeks, and which, by the precession of 



with those of other rivers of the tropics. Does this denote a 

 more remote cause of the rising of the waters ? 



* Nearly eighty or ninety days after the summer solstice. 



