gricultural point of view,
the country is rainless. Variable meteorological conditions are there
eliminated.

[Sidenote: Inundations of the Nile.]

[Sidenote: Gradual rise of the whole country.]

Where the Nile breaks through the mountain gate at Essouan, it is
observed that its waters begin to rise about the end of the month of
May, and in eight or nine weeks the inundation is at its height. This
flood in the river is due to the great rains which have fallen in the
mountainous countries among which the Nile takes its rise, and which
have been precipitated from the trade-winds that blow, except where
disturbed by the monsoons, over the vast expanse of the tropical Indian
Ocean. Thus dried, the east wind pursues its solemn course over the
solitudes of Central Africa, a cloudless and a rainless wind, its track
marked by desolation and deserts. At first the river becomes red, and
then green, because the flood of its great Abyssinian branch, the Blue
Nile, arrives first; but, soon after, that of the White Nile makes its
appearance, and from the overflowing banks not only water, but a rich
and fertilizing mud, is discharged. It is owing to the solid material
thus brought down that the river in countless ages has raised its own
bed, and has embanked itself with shelving deposits that descend on
either side toward the desert. For this reason it is that the inundation
is seen on the edge of the desert first, and, as the flood rises, the
whole country up to the river itself is laid under water. By the middle
of September the supply begins to fail and the waters abate; by the end
of October the stream has returned to its usual limits. The fields are
left covered with a fertile deposit, the maximum quantity of which is
about six inches thick in a hundred years. It is thought that the bed of
the river rises four feet in a thousand years, and the fertilized land
in its width continually encroaches on the desert. Since the reign of
Amenophis III. it has increased by one-third. He lived B.C. 1430. There
have accumulated round the pedestal of his Colossus seven feet of mud.

[Sidenote: Geological age of Egypt.]

In the recent examinations made by the orders of the Viceroy of Egypt,
close by the fallen statue of Rameses II., at Memphis, who reigned,
according to Lepsius, from B.C. 1394 to B.C. 1328, a shaft was sunk to
more than 24 feet. The water which then infiltrated compelled a resort
to boring, which was continued until 41 fee