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6,000 years of Genesis , that he did not pay sufficient attention 
to the geography, topography or geodesy of Egypt, and gave 
but a weak “ exegesis 33 of Herodotus. Let us therefore give 
all the more careful attention to his argument from the Nile- 
mud deposits. This mud deposit, he said, was very old, older 
than the pyramids which he said were built upon it ; and in 
order that those who heard him might never forget this asser- 
tion, he thought it proper to anticipate (very properly only to 
ridicule) the objection, should any one advance it, that the 
mud might have been afterwards put under the pyramids, in- 
stead of their being built upon it ! But the only objection he 
heard from the clergy was, that he was wrong in his statement 
that the pyramids stood on the mud ! He was told they were 
built upon rock, when he only ventured to suggest that they 
stood “ upon rock and sand. 33 But he added that it did not 
signify to his argument upon what they stood, as he only 
wished to prove, from the Nile-mud being older than the pyra- 
mids, what a long period must have elapsed before Joseph's 
time and before the pyramids of Egypt were built. He 
said : — 
“ These monuments, — built on the site of the Great Valley of the Nile, 
fertilized then as now by the deposits left by that overflow of the mud which 
became the source and cause of the land’s fertility and produce, — these 
monuments evidently existed after this great deposit of mud, upon which 
they stand ; and what is this Egyptian mud ? ” 
Then follows the passage I have already quoted referring to 
the opinion of Herodotus. After which the Professor goes 
on : — 
“• Various estimates have been made as to the quantity of mud which is 
brought down year by year. I will rather understate than overstate the 
results. The general estimate of the process of filling gives five inches in a 
century. This no doubt is a correct estimate, but let us take the quantity to 
be 12 inches or 1 foot in every century, so that there may be no room for 
cavil. Borings were made, and it was found that in the valley of the Nile 
we could bore to 70 feet through this Nile-mud. Now 70 feet at 1 foot for 
every 100 years gives at once 7,000 years, a longer period than has elapsed 
according to the received chronology of only 6,000 years since the creation 
of the world.” 
Now, I think we may well object to this average for the 
Nile-deposits of 1 foot in a century, for two very cogent 
reasons, and not because inclined to cavil. Because (1st), if five 
inches is the correct and general estimate, it ought on that 
account alone to be preferred ; and (2nd), because the one foot 
z 2 
