76 
ME.  HOENEE  ON  THE  ALLUVIAL  LAND  OE  EGYPT. 
the  reign  of  Menes,  the  founder  of  Memphis ; of  man,  moreover,  in  a state  of  chiliza- 
tion,  so  far,  at  least,  as  to  be  able  to  fashion  clay  into  vessels,  and  to  know  how  to  harden 
it  by  the  action  of  a strong  heat  *. 
In  the  pit  marked  No.  6 in  the  Ground  Plan  at  page  62,  which  was  354  yards  north 
of  the  colossal  statue,  at  a distance  of  330  yards  from  the  river,  fragments  of  pottery 
were  found  at  a depth  of  38  feet  from  the  surface  of  the  ground. 
Fragments  of  burnt  brick  and  of  pottery  have  been  found  at  even  greater  depths  in 
localities  near  the  banks  of  the  river,  ten  and  sixteen  miles  below  Cairo.  In  the  boring 
at  Sigiul,  described  in  page  64  under  the  number  26,  fragments  of  burnt  brick  and 
pottery  were  found  in  the  sediment  brought  up  from  between  the  45  th  and  50th  foot 
from  the  surface,  and  in  the  boring  at  Bessousse,  they  were  brought  up  from  the  lowest 
part,  viz.  59  feet  from  the  surface,  but  in  this  case  in  sand,  the  lowest  sediment  con- 
taining fragments  of  brick  and  pottery  being  at  a depth  of  about  48  feet.  I have  also 
learned,  from  a communication  with  which  I have  been  favoured  by  M.  Lixaxt  de  Belle- 
FONDS  (Lestant  Bey),  that  a few  years  ago  he  made  a boring  about  200  metres  (656  feet) 
from  the  river  on  the  Libyan  side  of  the  Eosetta  branch  of  the  Nile,  in  the  parallel  of 
the  apex  of  the  Delta,  and  that  he  had  found  fragments  of  red  brick  at  a depth  of  about 
72  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  ground.  But  in  these  cases  there  was  wanting  the 
fixed  point  of  known  age,  the  indispensable  requisite  for  the  formation  of  a chrono- 
metric  scale.  I may,  however,  state  that  M.  de  EoziEEEf  estimates  the  mean  rate  of 
the  deposit  of  the  sediment  in  the  Delta,  as  not  exceeding  2 French  inches  and  3 lines 
(60,907  millimetres=2'3622  English  inches)  in  a centuryj. 
The  lowest  water  in  the  Nilometer  of  Ehoda  in  the  year  1847,  was  determined  by 
M.  Talabot  to  be  46  feet  2 inches  above  low  water  in  the  Mediterranean  The  fall  of 
the  river  between  Cairo  and  the  apex  of  the  Delta  is  3|  inches  in  a mile  || , and  Sigioul 
and  Bessousse  being  about  10  miles  below  the  Ehoda  Nilometer,  the  lowest  water  in  the 
river  in  those  localities  would  be  about  43  feet.  It  is  thus  erident  that  the  frasments 
of  red  brick  and  pottery  found  in  the  sediment  brought  up  by  the  borings  in  those  places, 
must  have  been,  if  not  below,  a very  little  above  low-water  mark  in  the  Mediterranean, 
and  that  the  fragments  of  brick  found  at  so  great  a depth  by  Lixajvt  Bey  must  have 
been  considerably  below  that  mark.  It  is  therefore  most  probable  that  the  fragments 
found  in  these  localities  were  brought  down  by  the  river  from  the  higher  and  inhabited 
part  of  the  valley,  at  a time  previous  to  the  formation  of  the  Delta. 
There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  whole  of  the  area  now  occupied  by  the  allu- 
* For  the  opinion  of  the  Baron  vox  Bunsen  as  to  the  very  early  existence  of  man  in  Egypt,  see  Appen- 
dix, page  86,  Note  E. 
t Description  de  I’Egypte,  Hist.  Nat.,  tome  ii-  p.  494. 
t The  question  of  the  formation  of  the  Delta  is  very  fully  examined  hy  M.  Elie  de  Beaumont,  in  his 
‘ Le9ons  de  Geologie,’  tome  i.  pp.  405-492.  The  appearances  in  some  parts  of  the  coast,  which  have  led 
some  authors  to  suppose  them  to  be  indications  of  a depression  of  the  land,  are  considered  hy  M.  de  Beau- 
mont as  insufficient  proofs  of  such  an  event. 
§ Memoir,  Part  I.  p.  114.  [|  Id. 
