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uncontrolled salt water stream on entering the Mediter­ranean or Lake Menzaleh would have its mouth tending in the same direction and mingling with the Nile waters. But should such a stream as the Dardanelles invade the Delta, there is no calculating the extent of mischief it might occasion. Assuming, however, that the channel of such a salt water stream could be more fixed in the dis­tance between Serapeum and Lake Menzaleh, it would nevertheless in the height of the floods of the river be invaded in part, and have its banks and currents altered and damaged by the floods of the Nile, and the navigation impeded, if indeed a navigable channel could ever arise and be sustained under such circumstances.

It has been noticed, that, from geological data, we are to infer that the Bed Sea in former times penetrated freely to the basin of the Bitter Lake, and there left high-water marks quite distinguishable at the present day. And there being no sufficient barrier to prevent the sea flowing from the Bitter Lake to Lake Menzaleh, we must also infer that such an operation was in existence, entirely sepa­rating the land of Africa from that of Asia. But if we admit that such an order of things once prevailed, of which geological and physical phenomena present clear proofs, we have presented to us a channel between the two seas effected by natural causes. But what was once open is now closed, and we are left to infer, that, from a remote epoch, the natural causes tending to open and maintain a wide and deep channel between the two seas have been counteracted by causes of a contrary and more powerful nature.

We may admit that the water of the Bed Sea, with such a declivity to the Mediterranean, would be suffi­cient, in particular soils and other favourable circum-