316 
(if there is any cogency in these arguments at all) at the 
time of Joseph, and deeper still 2,000 years b.c. ? If it is 
argued that the quantity of mud which the Nile deposits in a 
century now, it must always have deposited in each preceding 
century ; and if that is to he regarded as a cogent argument 
capable of giving a firm foundation to “ scientific doctrine 
then, I say, this requires you also to admit (whenever you 
pay attention to the dimensions and the form of the basin in 
which the deposit is to be laid down,) that the depths of 
the deposit must vary greatly as we go back in time, and 
must have been very much greater in the long past than now. 
If that be so, we cannot concede, (as Professor Huxley re- 
quired of the clergy at Sion College,) that “ in the days of 
Joseph this Nile valley must have been essentially what it 
is now ” ! That there was then a fertile valley there, we 
may readily concede ; for what else could have induced the 
tribe of Mizraim to settle on the banks of the Nile ? But 
we cannot believe the valley was then so extensive, or that 
all its “ 70 feet deep ” of mud was deposited 2,000 years 
before Christ. Professor Huxley cannot believe that himself ! 
And he will find that if 5 inches of mud are now deposited 
in a century, and if merely the same quantity has for many 
centuries past been depositing, that this valley will rapidly 
narrow as he goes down, and he will soon come to the surface 
of the basin and channel of the river, with no fertile alluvium 
on its banks ! When he comes to this, let him propound 
a theory, in accordance with his philosophy, that will account 
for the existence in that condition of the heaved-up and 
divided mountains or scooped-out rocks that form the basin 
of the Nile valley; or that will account for the river, that 
flows along for more than 1,200 miles from its still probably 
undiscovered sources. For my own part, in pursuing this 
inquiry I have been forced to think, that the fertile valley 
of the Nile must have had its beginning when the waters sub- 
sided after the great Deluge, and returned from covering the 
face of the earth, though since then probably the greater part 
of the Delta has been formed, and the valley of the Nile has 
continued to fill up and to increase in breadth. But I must 
object to the notion of its filling up uniformly at the rate of 
1 foot in a century. The estimate is outrageously extravagant. 
Even that of 5 inches in a century, as the present rate , is 
more than we shall know what to make of, when the valley 
narrows as we descend in depth, and as we go back in time. 
I should rather be induced to accept the estimate of M. 
Bosiere of 2 inches and 3 lines in a century, that is, less 
than half the 5 inches announced by Professor Huxley as no 
