OCR Text |
Show 238 DEL'l'A OF THE NILE. thousand feet, or when we discover strata of inclined conglomerate, of the same age, near Nice, measuring above a thousand feet in thickness, and extending seven or eight miles in length, we behold nothing which the analogy of the deltas in the Adriatic might not lead us to anticipate. Delta of the Nile.-That Egypt was the gift of the Nile, was the opinion of her priests before the time of Herodotus; but we have no authentic memorials for determining, with accuracy, the additions made to the habitable surface of that country since the earliest historical period. We know that the base of the delta has been considerably modified since the days of Homer. The ancient geographers mention seven principal mouths of the Nile, of which the most eastern, the Pelusian, has been entirely silted up, and the Mendesian, or Tanitic, has disappeared. On the other hand, the Bucolic has, in modern times, been greatly enlarged, and has caused the coast to advance ; so that the city of Damietta, which, in the year l~M3, was on the sea, and possessed a good harbour, is now one mile inland. The Phatnitic mouth, and the Sebenitic, have been so altered, that the country immediately about them has little resemblance to that described by the ancients. 1,he Bolbitine mouth has increased in its dimensions, so as to cause the city of Rosetta to be at some distance from the sea. But the alterations produced round the Canopic mouth are the most important. The city Foah, which, so late as the beginning of the fifteenth century, was on this embouchure, is now more than a mile inland. Canopus, which, in the time of Scylax, was a desolate insular rock, has been connected with the firm land ; and Pharos, an island in the times of old, now belongs to the continent. Homer says, its distance from Egypt was one day's voyage by sea*. That this should have been the case in Homer's time, Larcher and others have, with reason, affirmed to be in the highest degree improbable; but Strabo has judiciously anticipated their objections, observing, that Homer was probably acquainted with the gradual advance of the land on this coast, and availed himself of this phenomenon to give an air of higher antiquity to the . * Ody., B. iv., 355, DELTA OF Tin: NILE. 239 remote period in which h 1 . The Lake Mareotis also t~ :~d th~ scene of his poem *. nected it with the c '· ge er with the canal which con-with mud, and is bec::~p~c arm :r.f the Nile, has been filled country round Memphis sery. d ~ erodotus observes, that the erne 10rmerly t h b of the sea gradually filled b the N'l . 0 ave een an arm the Meander, Achelous andy th I e, m the same manner as ''Egypt, therefore," he,says, ~ li~: :~:~md ;ad formed deltas. narrow bay and both lf: e ea, was once along land. If the Nile ,, he gaudds w:~el sepladrabted by a small neck of . . ' s, s 1ou y an h Issue mto the Arabian Gulf 't . h h k y means ave an ' 1 mig t c o e it 'th · twenty thousand or even perh . h up WI earth In ' aps m ten t ous d why may not the Nile have fill d . 1 d an years; and in the space of time which has epas:;dt lbm~u a still greater gulf, The d h . e1ore our age t ?'' a small J::ta::e t~:a!:et~!e:~:~:a:;s tbout twel;e fathoms at increases gradua1ly to fift d h he delta; It afterwards three hundred and ei ht y, f=~lO~ en s~dde.nly descends to original depth of the s!a yl . h s, whiCh Is, perhaps, the lower by fluviatile matt w ~~e It as not been rendered shallast two thousand years er.ffi d e p~~gress of the delta, in the mating its rate of ' a hor hs, pe~ aps, no measure for esti-growt w en 1t w · 1 d had not yet protruded itself as an man bay, and diterranean A fi 1 beyond the coast-line of the Me- . power u current no 1 of Africa, from the Str . t f G 'bw sweeps a ong the shores convexity of Egypt th ai s o . I raltar to the prominent h , e western side of h' h · . t e prey of the wave . h w IC Is contmually land checked but s '. so t at not only are fresh accessions of By this caus~ Ca ancientdparts of the delta are carried away. whelmed. but to ntohpi us, abn' some oth er t owns, h ave been over-ing of tid~s and s su ~ect we shall again refer when speakcurrents. * Lib. I., Part i ., PP . 80 an d 98 . Consult Von Hoff. l . 244 t Euterpe, XI. 'vo ' 1 '' P· ' |