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the Nile flowed close by the present western limits of Cairo, from which it 
is now separated by a plain extending to the width of more than a mile. In 
this plain one might now dig to the depth of twenty feet or more, and then 
find plenty of fragments of pottery and other remains less than 1,000 years 
old ! Natural changes in the course of the Nile similar to that which we 
have here mentioned, and some of them doubtless much greater, have taken 
place in almost every part of its passage through Egypt. 
“ Thus far we have adapted our remarks to Mr. Horner’s estimate of the 
mean rate of the increase of the alluvial soil. Most of this estimate is 
founded upon a grave mistake, that is, upon the assumption that the upper 
surface of the platform on which the colossal statue stood was scarcely higher 
than the general surface of the plain. The temple which contained the 
colossal statue was one of the buildings of Memphis, and, according to Mr. 
Horner’s assumption, it is a necessary consequence that both the city and the 
temple must have been for many days in every year to the depth of some 
feet under the surface of the inundation. This is quite incredible, and we 
may therefore feel certain that the Nile deposit did not begin to accumulate 
at the base of the statue till Memphis had fallen into ruins, about the fifth 
century of our era. 
“ These considerations, and many others which we might urge, tend to 
show that Mr. Horner’s pottery is no more likely than M. Bunsen’s chrono- 
logy to compel us to abandon our faith in the old Hebrew records. But one 
fact, mentioned by Mr. Horner himself, settles the question. He tells us that 
fragments of ‘ burnt brick and of pottery have been found at even greater 
depths (than thirty-nine feet) in localities near the banks of the river,’ and 
that in the boring at Sigiul 1 fragments of burnt brick and pottery were 
found in the sediment brought up from between the fortieth and fiftieth foot 
from the surface.’ Now, if a coin of Trajan or Diocletian had been discovered 
in these spots, even Mr. Homer would have been obliged to admit that he had 
made a fatal mistake in his conclusions ; but a piece of burnt brick found 
beneath the soil tells the same tale that a Roman coin would tell under the 
same circumstances. Mr. Homer and M. Bunsen have, we believe, never 
been in Egypt, and we therefore take the liberty to inform them that there is 
not a single known structure of burnt brick from one end of Egypt to the 
other earlier than the period of the Roman dominion. These fragments of 
burnt brick, therefore, have been deposited after the Christian era, and, 
instead of establishing the existence of man in Egypt more than 13,000 
years, supply a convincing proof of the worthlessness of Mr. Horner’s 
theory.” 
This criticism on Mr. Horner Sir Charles Lyell seeks to 
answer, in his Antiquity of Man , by stating that Hekekyan 
Bey was too sagacious to be deceived by his workmen ; that, 
as most of the borings were made far from the sites of towns 
and villages, there was but small chance of the borings strik- 
ing upon the sites of old wells ; that there was an equal im- 
