Poole, Reginald S.: The cities of Egypt (London, 1882)

INTRODUCTORY.

5

still yearly replenish a series of vast lakes. Forcing a
way northward to lower levels, the mass of water cut a
great trench in the rocky surface of the desert. In
Upper Egypt this stupendous work is about three hun-
dred feet deep from the top of the mountains to the
river's bed, and from eight miles to less than a mile in
breadth. As the Nile found a way to the sea, the waters
sank to the base of the trench, leaving usually a level
space on either side. With the rainy season of the equa-
torial region, the Nile still rises every year and carries
northward the rich soil washed down from the highlands
of Abyssinia, which with the beautiful regularity of nature
is spread equally on the whole surface covered by the
inundation, renewing the land, which never need lie
fallow, nor have any artificial aid to make it fertile.
This deposit has been carefully measured where in the
course of centuries it has risen up the sides of monuments
of known date. The rate of increase is only about four
inches and a half in a century, yet this is amply enough
to fertilize the land. Near Cairo the trench of the Nile-
valley opens out into a great triangular plain, the Delta,
or Lower Egypt, won, like all deltas, from the ocean.
Two great branches of the river water it, following its