73 
You will remember that wben Professor Huxley preached 
us his lay sermon on Genesis xli. 38, 39, he stated dogmatic- 
ally that the rate of the Nile deposit was one foot per century, 
and seeing that the Nile mud was in some places more than 
70 feet deep, this would give us 7,000 years as the minimum 
period during which the Nile deposit above the delta has been 
accumulating. Now I maintain that we have good scientific 
reasons for dividing this sum by 3, or at any rate by 2. For 
I have as good grounds for asserting that the rate of accumu- 
lation is 2 or 3 feet per century as Professor Huxley has for 
assuming it to be 1 foot. Taking the smaller estimate, 3,500 
years, even taking Hssher's chronology for the flood, gives me 
a good margin to allow for a few feet below the 70. Though 
I must remark, that at 40 feet, the boring near the statue of 
Rameses II. at Memphis passed through the alluvial deposit 
and entered the sand. 
Could I not give such data as I have done for assuming the 
mean rate of deposit as much greater than one foot per cen- 
tury, I cannot see that Professor Huxley's sermon would gain 
much force. Supposing it could be proved, although I main- 
tain that it has not been proved, that during the last 2,000 
years the rate of increase has been no more than one foot per 
century, we are by no means able to assume that this has 
always been its mean rate. The Nile is subject to floods. In 
September, 1818, Belzoni witnessed one, where, although the 
river rose only 3J feet above its ordinary level, several villages, 
with hundreds of men, women, and children, were swept 
away by it. Professor Huxley reminded us that the ground 
through which the Nile now flows was once under the sea. 
The whole region through which the Nile runs must there- 
fore have been elevated to its present height. Who, there- 
fore, can venture to estimate the rate at which the newly- 
formed river would deposit mud in its course? Who can 
estimate the number of lakes in the highlands of Africa (from 
whence the Nile takes its rise) ? Who can estimate how 
many of these lakes may have burst their bounds and poured 
at once a vast body of turbid water into the river ? Only a 
few years ago a comparatively paltry body of water, dammed 
up as an artificial reservoir, near Sheffield, burst its banks, 
and in a few minutes carried havoc and destruction through a 
peaceful valley, uprooting trees, demolishing houses, and 
tossing about the heaviest iron tilt-hammers and machinery 
like chips of wood. A few minutes served to fill the lower 
stories of houses miles from the reservoir, and even at a 
good distance from the river bed, with a deposit of more than 
a foot of mud. Sir Charles Lyell has given a vivid descrip- 
