320 
the cities were in his day still standing generally upon elevated 
foundations or on rocks in the valley. He says : — 
u When the Nile inundates the country the cities alone are seen above its 
surface, very like the islands of the -ZEgean Sea ; for all the rest of Egypt 
becomes a sea, and the cities are alone above the surface. When this 
happens, they navigate no longer by the channel of the river, but across the 
plain. To a person sailing from Naucratis to Memphis, the passage is by the 
pyramids ; this, however, is not the usual course, but by the point of the 
Delta and the city of Cercasorus ; and in sailing from the sea and Canopus 
to Naucratis across the plain, you will pass by the city of Anthylla and that 
called Archandropolis,”* &c. 
Well, this being the case in the time of Herodotus, let us 
remember, that if we take Professor Huxley's rate of deposit 
for the mud as a foot in a century, all these cities if standing 
at the present day would have been 23 feet nearer (if not 
below) the surface of the water than when Herodotus wrote 
or on the more moderate and “ correct " calculation of 5 inches 
deep of deposit now in a century (and adding nothing to this 
depth for the narrowing of the valley), they would be some 
9 \ feet less above water now, than twenty-three centuries ago. 
Herodotus further mentions that— 
“ the priests had told him that in the reign of Moeris, when the river rose at 
least eight cubits, it irrigated all Egypt below Memphis ; and yet [he adds] 
Moeris had not been 900 years dead when I received this information. But 
now’, unless the river rises sixteen cubits or fifteen at least, it does not over- 
flow the country. It appears to me, therefore, that if the soil continues to 
grow in height, in the same proportion, and to contribute in like manner to- 
wards its increase, those Egyptians below Lake Moeris, who inhabit other 
districts and that which is called Delta, must, by reason of the Nile not 
overflowing their land,” suffer for want of water.! 
Leaving out his mere speculations and looking at his facts,* 
they would seem to indicate that at this time the city of 
Memphis was not liable to be flooded as it is now j but only 
the whole country below it (or of a lower level) towards the sea. 
That of course is perfectly consistent with the lower ground 
much further up the valley and all round about, being more 
or less irrigated by the rising of the river. 
So much then for the argument from the mud- deposits in 
the valley of the Nile. — And now for Professor Huxley's next 
point — 
* Enter p. ii. 97. 
f Euterp. ii. 13. 
