319 
dissipate. The passage, read anyhow, ought to have been 
sufficient to put any one on his guard against transporting 
the pyramids from their real position on the rocks “ on which 
they stand,” into the valley of the Nile ! 
Here I must for a moment leave Herodotus, in order to 
allude to one other consideration affecting this important 
question, and which might of itself have been advanced as a 
sufficient argument against any assumed uniform rate of mud- 
deposit in the Nile valley. I refer to the great probability 
that the general level of the country of Egypt has been 
subjected to elevations and depressions, which of course 
would materially affect the rate of the Nile’s deposits. It 
appears that Sir Gardner Wilkinson was led to infer that 
there has been a sinking of some parts of Egypt, judging from 
the present position of the tombs in the Delta called Cleopatra’s 
Baths. These, he thinks, could not have been originally built 
so as to be exposed to the sea, which now fills them ; but must 
have stood upon land once above the level of the Mediterra- 
nean. Sir Gardner adduces as additional signs of subsidence, 
some ruined towns now half under water on the Lake of 
Menzaleh, and channels of the ancient arms of the Nile itself, 
now submerged with their banks below the level of the water 
of that lagoon. Professor Huxley did not think it necessary 
to notice these facts adduced by Sir Gardner Wilkinson, nor 
the seemingly “ cogent arguments ” Sir Gardner founds upon 
them. No doubt it is much easier to settle complicated 
questions off-hand, in “ professorial style,” and “ to snatch a 
verdict,” especially when it may be done “with benefit of 
clergy !” But is this fair to one’s audience, or to the public, 
or to Truth ? Is that the way we are to teach our children 
“ science,” in the days to come, in our halls and universities ? 
But to revert to Herodotus. He tells us that in his day, 
that is, about five hundred years b.c., the Egyptians inclosed 
within embankments the areas upon which they had built 
their temples and monuments, and that these spots appeared 
to have sunk, and could be looked down upon from the 
surrounding grounds. 
This is adduced by Mr. Brodie * as an argument in favour 
of a depression having taken place of the sites on which tho 
temples stood, subsequent, of course, to their erection. No 
one will readily believe that the architects of Thebes or 
Memphis would havo built city after city and temple after 
temple in positions where they would be annually flooded; 
and indeed there is a passage in Herodotus which shows that 
* The Antiquity, Sc., of Man, p. 56. 
