portionable quantity of soil (the depth of the water being always regarded) may have been left upon the surface. But I am sensible, that trials and experiments of this kind ought to be carefully examined and repeated, before any hypothesis is built upon them. I therefore dare propose it only as a conjecture, that, according to the computation of time by the vulgar æra*, this accession of soil, since the deluge, must have been in a proportion of somewhat more than a foot in a hundred years. This, though we cannot absolutely prove it, appears highly probable, by comparing only the present state and condition of Egypt with what it was two or three thousand years ago. For Herodotus † acquaints us, that in the reign of Myris, if the Nile rose to the height of eight Grecian cubits, all the land of Egypt was sufficiently watered; but that in his time, which was not quite nine hundred years after Myris, the country required fifteen or sixteen. The addition of soil therefore (by supposing them to have been fifteen cubits only) will be seven Grecian cubits, or an hundred and twenty-six inches, in the space of nine hundred years. But at present, the river must rise to the height of twenty Stamboline cubits (and it usually rises from twenty-two to twenty-four) before the whole country is overflowed. Kalkasendas, in his treatise of the Nile, acquaints us, that the Nile, from an. Hej. 13, VOL. II. 2 G Viz. by following the Hebrew text. ' to to an. Hej. 700, had risen gradually from four teen, to sixteen or seventeen cubits.' He adds further: As for our time, (viz. an. Hej. 806 ; i. e. A. D. 1403) the soil is raised by the falling ' of the mud that is brought down with the wa ter; and the bridges' (such, we may imagine, as were formerly built over the canals, when the Nile did not rise so high) are broken down, or 6 covered,' (as we may again imagine, by the aug mented impetuosity or height of the stream); 'and 'the Nile, by the appointment of the most high God, is reduced to these three states: the insufficient, which is sixteen cubits more or less; the middle, which is from seventeen to eighteen cubits or thereabouts; and the high, which is when it exceeds eighteen cubits; and some'times it will rise to twenty.' Since the time therefore of Herodotus, by making twenty cubits only the standard, Egypt has gained two hundred and thirty inches of soil. And again, if we look back from the reign of Myris to the time of the deluge, and reckon that interval by the same proportion, we shall find the whole perpendicular accession of soil, from the deluge to A. D. 1721, to be five hundred inches. The land of Egypt therefore, agreeably to the æra and conjecture above, and reckoning by a cubit of twenty-five inches only, has gained forty-one feet eight inches of soil in 4072 years *. Thus, in process of time, the whole country may be raised to such a height, that * Viz. by reckoning according to Mr Bedford's Tables, from the Deluge to A. D. 1721, the year when I was in Egypt. that the river will not be able to overflow it; and Egypt consequently, from being the most fertile, will, for want of this annual inundation, become one of the most barren parts of the universe *. The objections that have been made to this hypothesis will be hereafter considered. However, among the many doubts and difficulties that have been already mentioned, or may be hereafter raised upon this subject, there will always be room to make this very just and im portant observation, that if Herodotus had duly considered the annual increase of the soil, and carried back his remarks a thousand years beyond the time of Myris, he could not have given the least credit to that long succession of dynastiest, which make up the Egyptian history. For since, according to his own reflections, Egypt is the entire, though gradual gift of the Nile, there must have been a time (and that not long before the period last mentioned) when it was either of the same barren nature with the deserts that surround it, or else that it must have been quite covered with water; consequently, there could have been no habitable country for these pretended princes 6 to * Macrizi, in his account of the Nile, has this observation; piz.' If Egypt,' says he, 'should not receive a sufficient quantity of moisture from the gradual increase and rising of the Nile, and the water retire from it afterwards, by the beginning of 'seed-time; the country would be entirely ruined, and the inhabitants would perish with hunger.' Herod Eut. § 43. & 145. The like account we have in Diodorus, 1.i. p. 13. & 15. & p. 28. At the same time he acknowledges, that the Egyptians boast of astronomical observations (Tay aisy, p. 51.) from an incredible number of years. to have reigned over. Our historian himself sup poses it to have been originally an arm of the sea; and the time, pretty nearly, when it was so, he had learnt from the Egyptians, who assured him, that Menes* was the first king who reigned in the world; that in his time, all Egypt, except the country of Thebes, was one continued morass; and that below the Lake of Myris, no part of the present land appeared. Now, as Menes or Osiris was the same with Mizraim, the son of Cham, the first planter of Egypt, as all the foregoing circumstances so well agree with the Mosaic account of the flood, and of the dispersion of mankind after it, Herodotus does hereby confirm the very truth and certainty of the Scripture chronology, and at the same time overthrows the authority of all those extravagant annals and antiquities that were so much boasted of by the Egyptians |. Herod. Eut. § 11. + Vid. Shuckford Connect. vol. i. p. 205. SEC Gen. x. 6. Horodotus, always too credulous with regard to these boasted antiquities of the Egyptians, insists likewise that circumcision was much earlier received by them, than by the Syrians of Palæstine, i. e. the Hebrews, or Israelites; for the Philistines thernselves, who were originally Egyptians, and gave name to the country, were uncircumcised. Now, by considering Gen. xlv. 12. in the original text, agreeably to the Hebrew diction and brevity of expression, we may receive one plausible argument, why Herodotus may be equally mistaken in this assertion. For the rabbinical commentators observe upon this verse, (which we translate, And behold your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you), that Joseph gave the patriarchs therein three proofs of his being their brother. The first was the token of circumcision, peculiar at that time (as they affirm) to the family of Abraham, which he is supposed SECTION IV. Some additional Proofs and Conjectures concerning the Augmentation which Egypt receives annually from the Nile. THOUGH it seems to be fairly proved and collected, as well from the foregoing section, as from the quotations which finish the dissertation concerning supposed to have discovered, by unfolding his garment whilst they stood near him, and bidding them regard it. Behold, says he, your eyes see, by this token, that I am no stranger, but of the lineage of Abraham. And then, to shew that he was not descended from Ishmael, he lays down for his second proof, the near resemblance of his own features to those of his brother Benjamin, who was born of the same mother. And behold, continues he, the eyes (or countenance) of my brother Benjamin, how nearly they resemble my own. The third proof was his language; Moreover, he adds, it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. For he had now begun to talk with them in their own tongue, having hitherto conversed with them in the strange language he had learnt by an interpreter. We may add some further light and authority to this exposition, by the following observations; viz. first, that notwithstanding he had already told them he was Joseph, (ver. 3.) yet this must undoubtedly have appeared to Reuben, in particular, to have been altogether impossible; in as much as he had all along understood, that Joseph had been devoured by wild beasts. It must seem no less improbable to the rest. For as they were too conscious of their having sold him to the Ishmaelites, who were generally employed in the exchange of merchandise from one distant place to another, they could not entertain the least imagination of his being the second person in Egypt; or even that he should be a settled inhabitant of that kingdom. Besides all this, the Egyptian dress, and fifteen years difference in his age since his brethren saw him, when he was then a youth only, would occasion such an alteration in his person, as might well demand, in the present surprize they were in, some further proof than this bare declaration, that he was Joseph. Secondly, His appealing, after he had addressed himself to them all, to the single testimony of Benjamin, how superior a token soever it may |