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Show , ( I 27 ] High o'er his head the beams of SrRius glow, And, Dog of Nile, ANUBis barks below. NYMPHS! vou from cli:ffto cliff attendant guide 135 In headlong cataraCts the impetuous tide; Or lead o'er wafies of Abyffinian fands The bright expanfe to EGYPT's iliower-lefs lands. -Her long canals the facred waters fill, And edge with filver every peopled hill in May, June, and July, and produce a mafs of water which is three months in draining off. The Abbe La Pluche._ obferves that as Sirius, or the dog-O:ar, rofe at the time of the commencement of the flood its riflng was watched b.y the afhonomers, and no· tice given of the approach of inundation by hanging the figure of Anubis, which was that of a man with a dog's head, upon all their temples. Hifloire de Ciel. Egypt's jhower-ltjs lands. l. 138. There feem to be two fituations which mn be conceived to be exempted from rain falling upon them, one where the conllant trade-winds meet beneath the line, for here two·regions of warm air are mixed together, and thence do not feem to have any caufe to precipitate their vapour; and the other is, where the winds are brought from colder climates and become warmer by their contaCl: with the earth of a warmer one. Thus Lower Egypt is a flat country warmed by the fun more than the higher 1aJ1ils on one fide of it, and than the Mediterranean on the other; and hence the winds which blow over it acquirt: greater warmth, which ever way they come, than they polTeffed before, aRd in confequence have a tendency to acquire and not to part with their vapour like the north-eafl: winds of this country. There is faid to be a narrow fpot upon the coafl: of Peru where rain feldom occurs, at the fame time accord. ing to Ulloa on the mountainous regions of the Andes beyond there is almoll perpetual rain. For the wind blows uniformly upon this hot part of the coafl: of Peru, but no caufe of deva porat ion occurs till it begins to afcend the mountainous Andes, and then its own ex.pan!ion P!oduces cold fufficient to condenfe its vapour.-. |
