MR. HORNER ON THE ALLUVIAL LAND OF EGYPT. 
121 
tions, whatever was necessary to carry them out in the most complete manner, but 
with truly royal munificence told Mr. Murray that the whole expense of them should 
be defrayed by his Treasury. 
When I submitted my proposal to the Council of the Royal Society, I did not con- 
template the accomplishment of anything beyond the sinking of a few pits ; but I had 
now the prospect of researches being made on a great scale ; how widely they were 
afterwards extended, by the continued exertions of Mr. Murray and of his successor 
the Hon. Frederick Bruce, and by the unabated liberality of the Viceroy, will 
appear in the course of this memoir. 
It may appear remarkable to many, as it had done to Cuvier, that researches of 
this nature had not been undertaken before. With the exception of the corps of 
scientific men appointed by the French Government to accompany the Egyptian 
expedition under General Buonaparte, very few of those who have visited Egypt 
have turned their attention to geological researches ; most travellers have been 
attracted by the interesting objects of art and the history of the people. In the 
introduction to his memoir ‘ Sur la vallee d’Egypte,’ M. Girard* observes, — “Parmi 
les nombreux voyageurs qui ont donne des descriptions de I’Egypte, il n’en est aucun 
qui se soit propose d’examiner la Vallee oh coule le Nil, avec assez de details pour con- 
clure, de son 4tat present, les changemens successifs qu’elle a subis et ceux qu’elle 
doit eprouver dans la suite” (p. 185 ) ; and at p. 251 he goes on to say, “ La question 
de I’exhaussement du sol de I’Egypte, et de I’accroissement du Delta, avait ete traitee, 
j usque dans ces derniers temps, ou par des voyageurs qui ne faisaient pas de cette 
question un objet particulier de recherche, ou par des 4rudits qui pretendaient 
reclaircir en essayant de concilier certains passages d’auteurs anciens contradictoires 
entre eux, ou du moins que leur obscurite rend susceptibles d’interpretations dif- 
ferentes. On ne pouvait esperer d’obtenir une solution complete de cette question, 
que lorsque les geologues et ceux qui ont fait une etude particuliere de la theorie 
des cours des fleuves s’en seraient empares.” 
But the operations of which I am about to give an account are of a nature and 
extent that scarcely any individual traveller could undertake; for they have required 
a large body of men, and some of them practised in the art of surveying; and as they 
could only be carried on after the waters of the inundation have subsided for some 
time, and therefore at a season of the year when the heat is excessive, those only 
inured to the climate could undertake such a work. 
I explained my views as to the manner in which I desired that the researches should 
be carried on in the following directions to Hekekyan Bey : — 
“Mr. Harris has communicated to me your most obliging letter to him, in which 
you so warmly enter into the subject of my correspondence with him, viz. the insti- 
tution of experiments to measure the depth of the alluvial deposits of the Nile, with 
* Memoires de I’Academie Royale des Sciences de I’lnstitut de France, annee 1817, p. 185. 
MDCCCLV. S 
