atmosphere of which nature seems to have adopted new and singular arrangements. In that country, distinguished by an uncommon regularity of the seasons and of all the changes which the atmosphere presents, these meteorological facts were first ascertained with philosophical accuracy. But though the observations of the ancient sages of Thebes and Memphis, engraved on immense masses of granite, have defied the ravages of time, and the still more destructive hand of man, we can only view the characters with regret, and lament that a wise and learned people may utterly perish before the monuments of their power and science have entirely passed away.

Egypt is usually divided into Upper and Lower, the latitude of Cairo presenting in our day the line of demarcation. But besides this distinction there is another of great antiquity, to which frequent allusion is made by the Greek and Roman authors, namely, that of the Delta, the Heptanomis, and the Thebaid. According to this distribution, the first of the provinces just mentioned occupied the seacoast of the Mediterranean; the third the narrow valley of Upper Egypt; while to the second was allotted the intermediate space, which seems to have been divided into seven districts or cantons. At a later period, when Egypt became subject to the Romans, the Arcadia of that people corresponded nearly to the ancient Heptanomis; and, about the conclusion of the fourth century, the eastern division of the Delta, between Arabia and the Phatnitic branch of the Nile, as high as Heliopolis, was erected into a new province under the name of Augustamnica. In modern times the Arabs have

changed the classical appellation of Thebaid into Saïd, or the high country; the Heptanomis into Vostani; and the Delta into Bahari, or the maritime district.

The following table exhibits a succinct view of the territorial distribution of Egypt as recognized by modern geographers, and the actual government of the country:

II. THE VOSTANI, OR MIDDLE EGYPT.

1. Province of Fayoum.

The frequent alteration of terms by nations using different languages, has produced considerable obscurity in geographical details, as well as a most inconvenient variety in the spelling of proper names. The cities which flourished during the different pe

riods of the Persian, Grecian, Roman, and Sarace nic dynasties, were not only erected on the sites of more ancient edifices, but, under the Turkish and Mamlouk domination, their positions have been partially changed; and thus, splendid towns, celebrated in history, have been buried in their own ruins, and the traveller searches for them in vain within the circuit of their ancient walls.

Nor is this vicissitude confined to the works of human art. Even the great lineaments of nature undergo a gradual change, and thereby render the descriptions of early authors almost unintelligible to the modern traveller. The mouths of the Nile, for example, have often deserted their channels, and the river has entered the sea at different points. The seven estuaries known to the ancients, were:-1. The Canopic mouth, corresponding to the present outlet from the Lake Etko, or, according to others, that of the Lake of Aboukir or Maadée ; but it is probable that, at one time, it had communications with the sea at both these places. 2. The Bolbitine mouth at Rosetta. 3. The Sebenitic, probably the opening into the present Lake Burlos. 4. The Phatnitic or Bucolic at Damietta. 5. The Mendesian, which is lost in the Lake Menzaleh, the mouth of which is represented by that of Debeh. 6. The Tanitic or Saitic, which seems to have some traces of its termination to the east of the Lake Menzaleh, under the modern appellation of Om-Faridjé. The branch of the Nile which conveyed its waters to the sea, corresponds to the canal of Moez, which now loses itself in the lake. 7. The Pelusiac, which seems to be represented by what is now the most easterly mouth of Lake

Menzaleh, where the ruins of Pelusium are still visible.*

Of these communications with the sea, the Nile, it is well known, maintains at the present day only the second and the fourth,-the others having been long choked up with mud, or with the earth which falls from the crumbling banks. The cultivation of the Delta has been contracted in a similar proportion; for in Egypt, wherever the water of the river is withheld, the desert extends or resumes its dominion, covering the finest fields with barren sand and useless shrubs.

Our description of the physical aspect of this singular country would not be complete did we fail to mention the Valley of the Natron Lakes, and that of the Waterless River. In the former of these, there is a series of six basins bounded on the one side by a lofty ridge of secondary rocks, which perhaps proves the means of concentrating the saline deposite which has given celebrity to the place. The banks and the waters are covered with crystallizations, consisting of muriate of soda or sea-salt, and of natron or carbonate of soda. When a volume of water contains both these salts, the muriate of soda is the first to crystallize, and the carbonate is then deposited in a separate layer. But, in some instances, the two crystallizations are observed to choose, without any assignable cause, distinct localities in different parts of the same lake.

The Waterless River, called by the Arabs Bahrbela-Maieh, presents itself in a valley which runs

i.

* Malte Brun, vol. iv. p. 23. Mém. sur l'Egypte, vol. 165. Mém. sur les Bouches du Nil, par Dubois-Aymé.

p.

parallel to the one just described, and is separated from it only by a line of elevated ground. It has been traced from the neighbourhood of the Mediterranean, through the desert country which stretches to the westward of Fayoum. In the sand with which its

channel is everywhere covered, trunks of trees have been found in a state of complete petrifaction, and also the vertebral bone of a large fish. Jasper, quartz, and petrosilex, have likewise been observed scattered over the surface; and hence some learned persons have thought that these fragments of rock, which do not belong to the contiguous hills, have been conveyed thither by a branch of the Nile, which, it is more than probable, once passed in this direction, and discharged itself into the sea at some distance to the westward of Alexandria. But this question, which belongs more properly to a subsequent part of our volume, will be discussed at some length in connexion with the opinions of those writers who have most recently examined the borders of Lake Mœris.*

* Belzoni, vol. ii. p. 183. Denon, vol. i. p. 224.