56 
ME.  HOEKEE  ON  THE  ALLUVIAL  LAND  OF  EGYPT. 
To  mark  the  depth  from  the  surface  of  the  ground  to  the  lowest  part  of  the  pedestal ; 
To  ascertain  carefully  the  nature  of  the  ground  on  which  the  pedestal  rests ; 
To  continue  the  sinking  of  the  shaft,  so  long  as  the  soil  passed  thi’ough  should  con- 
sist of  allu\ial  deposit ; 
If  no  pedestal  were  found,  that  the  shaft  should  be  made  close  to  the  statue,  and  that 
a specimen  of  each  variety  of  soil  passed  through  should  be  carefully  preserved. 
By  the  middle  of  April  1852,  the  engineers  had  begun  their  preparations  for  the 
work,  and  on  the  10th  of  May  the  researches  commenced.  Several  shafts  were  sunk, 
which  I shall  notice  hereafter,  besides  that  at  the  colossal  statue,  for  the  operations  were 
continued  without  interruption  to  the  3rd  of  October,  and  then,  in  spite  of  every  effort 
to  close  the  breaches  in  the  embankments  around  the  district  in  which  the  works  were 
carried  on,  the  Nile  inundated  all  the  pits,  and  compelled  the  party  to  take  refuge  on 
the  neighbouring  mounds. 
Inequalities  in  the  surface  of  the  ground. 
The  surface  of  the  ground  for  some  distance  around  the  colossal  statue  being  uneven, 
it  became  necessary,  in  order  to  ascertain  the  variable  depth  of  water  during  an  inun- 
dation at  the  mouths  of  the  pits  in  various  parts  of  the  area,  now  intended  to  be  sunk, 
that  the  level  of  the  highest  rise  of  the  water  over  that  ground  at  a given  time  should 
be  determined.  Accordingly  the  Salibe  level  * of  the  flood  of  1851  on  the  Libyan  dyke 
of  the  river  to  the  east  of  the  village  of  Bedreshin  was  accurately  ascertained,  and  was 
found  to  be  ^ths  of  a cubit  (9'922  inches)  above  the  twenty-foiu’th  cubit  mark  on  the 
Nilometer  on  the  island  of  Bhoda  near  Cairo  f.  The  line  of  the  twenty-foiuth  cubit 
covers  the  entire  surface  of  the  valley,  leaving  above  it  artiflcial  elevations,  such  as  dykes, 
mounds  of  rubbish,  and  buildings.  The  inequalities  of  the  ground  are  such  that,  in  any 
section  under  the  said  twenty-fourth  cubit  level,  the  surface  varies  from  where  it  coin- 
cides with  that  level  to  nearly  twenty  feet  in  the  deepest  part ; so  that  while  in  one  part 
of  the  district  there  might  be  a depth  of  nearly  twenty  feet  of  turbid  water,  in  another 
it  might  be  less  than  an  inch ; a circumstance  of  great  importance  to  bear  in  mind  in 
this  inquiry.  M.  Talabot,  in  the  report  of  the  operations  of  the  French  Brigade  in 
1846-47,  states  that,  in  the  latter  year,  the  inundation  rose  to  the  twenty-fourth  cubit 
mark  of  the  Bhoda  Nilometer,  and  that  that  mark  is  71  feet  5^  inches  above  the  mean 
level  of  the  Mediterranean  J.  The  Nile  having  risen  in  1851  ten  inches  above  the  twenty- 
fourth  cubit  mark,  the  distance  by  the  river  from  the  Nilometer  to  the  parallel  of  Bed- 
reshin being  13  miles,  and  the  ascent  of  this  part  of  the  river  being  estimated  at  about 
5^  inches  in  a mile,  the  level  of  the  inundation  water  of  1851  over  the  site  of  the  colossal 
statue,  was  thus  78  feet  3 inches  above  the  mean  level  of  the  Mediterranean. 
* The  Salibe  is  the  stationary  level  occupied  by  the  inundation  water  at  the  autumnal  equinox. 
j Estimating  the  cubit  at  5.5  centimetres,  and  1 centimetre  at  0'39371  of  an  inch,  21  cubits  ai’e  nearly 
43  feet  31  inches. 
1 Memoire  de  la  Societe  d’Etudes  de  ITsthme  de  Suez. 
